


Hit Me With Your Best Shot

by DarkShadows_EvilMind



Category: Barry (TV 2018), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Online Dating, Awkward Sexual Situations, BDSM, Barry Jumps The Gun A Lot, Bisexual Barry Berkman, Bondage, Depressed Barry Berkman, Dom/sub, Eddie Kaspbrak Doesn't Go To Derry - AU, Eventual Sex, Gay Disaster Eddie Kaspbrak, I Was Drunk When I Wrote This, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, It's 2020 Just Let Me Have This OK?, It's Going Well Until Hank Shows Up, M/M, Masochism, Miscommunication, Orgasm Denial, Praise Kink, RomCom - Kind Of, Sex Toys, What Was I Thinking?, arguing like a married couple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:20:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27953006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadows_EvilMind/pseuds/DarkShadows_EvilMind
Summary: There's an ad for new beginnings on the back of the flier for Chechen Mail Order Brides that NoHo Hank dropped off for him at his drab NYC apartment, and Barry finds himself delving deeper than he ever expected to uncover his "true nature." All he ever wanted was to be an actor, but with LA in his rearview mirror, is that still possible? In a last ditch effort to save himself, Barry agrees to the terms and conditions and finds himself planning a session with a professional Dom in hopes that he can finally uncover his truth - his real self. His true nature.After separating from his wife following a car crash, Eddie made a name for himself as a Dom on the True Beginnings D/s matchmaking app. He has strict rules for his subs, and even stricter rules for himself - but all of that might fly out the window as his newest client has him weak in the knees. All Eddie's know for sure is that this client is going to be the death of him: One way or another.Tl;Dr: Barry is depressed in NYC, NoHo Hank inadvertently makes it better and then worse. Meanwhile, Eddie thinks he's a hotshot Dom until he just about gets shot. Will they ever admit they're in love?
Relationships: Barry Berkman/Eddie Kaspbrak
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! It's the crossover no one asked for. Picture a romantic comedy, but with twice the sex and gun battles.
> 
> I just want masochist Barry, okay? I just want masochist Barry finally breaking and admitting what he wants instead of going in circles and trying to win affection like it's a prize. I just want our boy to be happy.
> 
> I also just like kinky Dom Eddie and I will die on this hill. 
> 
> I also like to see morally ambiguous Barry shooting people who hurt people he cares about.
> 
> Please enjoy my shenanigans. There will be drama, there will be whump, there will be smut, there will NOT be NoHo Hank offering up submarine sandwiches.

Barry found himself sitting naked on the floor of his bathtub, staring overhead at the shower head which dripped again and again—further contributing to the red rust stain around the gaping hole that served as the drain. The shower was on… By all means, he should be getting sprayed in the face with a jet of hot water, and yet the shower head continued to just drip… Drip… Drip…

Drip…

“I fucking hate New York...” He said this to no one, to nothing, and was somehow still disheartened by the silence that called back to him.

This was his new apartment. _This_ was home.

It had become all too clear that he couldn’t stay in Los Angeles. The life he’d been trying to build there, trying to force there, was impossible to maintain. It was impossible to keep. Like a snowflake… It was beautiful, dreamlike—it was one of a kind. And it was all temporary. Like everything else in his life that was ever brilliant or beautiful or _good,_ it couldn’t last.

His very presence tainted everything. His _nature_ tainted everything, and this—this leaky shower head which proved he had running water and yet somehow did not at the same time—was what he deserved. 

Gene knew about Moss…

Sally was unobtainable…

It felt like one moment he’d had everything, and then it had all crumbled at his feet. As soon as he’d even floated the idea of leaving town, Sally had become defensive. She’d thought he was joking, the grew resentful and bitter when he made it clear he was not. He didn’t _want_ her to succeed, she said. He didn’t _want_ to see her make a name for herself. She’d finally got the attention she deserved after all her years of hard work and dedication, and he wanted to strip it all away by tugging her along with him to New York. He was jealous of her, she said. He was selfish and careless and a monster…

Things he knew to be true about himself hurt ten times worse when they were spit from her sweet, beautiful mouth. 

So many things he’d hoped he could tell her… So many dreams he wished he could unfold with her.

All he had now was her picture in his new cell phone and memories that grew more and more poisonous with each passing day. 

Barry tipped head head back against the yellow-tinged plastic wall of his shower and closed his eyes. What did it matter? New York or Los Angeles? Cleveland or New York? New York or Afghanistan? No matter where he went, it was Hell on Earth.

It was Hell because he was there… 

It was Hell because—

“Yoo-hoo. Earth to Barr-y. Yoo-hoo! Oh, there you are. Yes, good morning, Barry.” 

Barry’s eyes snapped open and he immediately slammed back against the shower wall, the plastic giving a horrid creak like at any moment its aged, flimsy surface would crack and let a hoard of roaches come pouring out.

“What are you doing in my apartment? How did you find me?” 

Above him was Hank—silhouetted a little by the naked bulb burning overhead, but Barry would recognize that shiny, bald head anywhere. 

“You know… For hitman, you are not that hard to find. It’s kind of embarrassing really. Embarrassing for you, I should say.” No-Ho Hank had been kneeling beside the tub, but now started to stand and placed his hands on his hips while Barry blinked awake, his eyes stinging and watering from want of sleep. 

“What do you want? Why did you follow me here?” Barry realized that there was a towel draped over his lap, a towel he definitely didn’t have there when he’d passed out. Hank, seeing him notice the towel, decided to answer that question instead.

“Barry, we’ve got to be pretty good friends. Wouldn’t you say? I forgive the whole...you shoot me thing, you try to get me killed thing, you try to frame me for murder of police detective thing… Yes?”

“Sure.” Barry groaned as he stood from the floor of the tub, wrapping the towel around his waist to maintain some shred of dignity—not sure what good it would do him. 

“You know, I try to turn shower on to wake you up, but...it’s already on, apparently. Talk about low flow!” He laughed then, like he told some joke, and Barry let out a sigh. His head was starting to ache and the very last thing he wanted was roped into more of the bullshit he’d specifically left LA to escape.

“Yeah, I have to call the building super. What do you want?”

“I want to know why you leave LA. We went to pick you up and just, _poof!_ Gone. We asked your pretty girlfriend where you were and she said—you know what she said?”

“What did she say, Hank?” Barry asked, shuffling into his bedroom and sinking down on the mattress he had laying on the floor. No sheets yet, just a knit blanket and a sad, deflated pillow. 

“She said ‘don’t know, and don’t care. Good riddance.’ You two had a fight, yes?”

“You could call it that, sure.” Barry scrubbed at his face, trying to run through scenarios. Hank was here—Hank traced him here, so that meant others weren’t far behind. Fuches probably wasn’t far behind. 

“Aw, come on, big guy!” Hank said it like he was coaxing a dog into a car to go to the vet’s office. “You can tell me anything. We are good friends, you me. Right?”

“Yes, we had a fight,” Barry said, face buried in his hands. This couldn’t be happening. This could _not_ be happening.

“See, that’s what I thought! And here I have for you and offering—a present!”

“That’s great, but I’m really not interested… So could you please just—”

“You can’t say you don’t want it before you even see it. Here, look. Just look at it. Please! Humor me.”

Barry let out a heavy sigh and tipped his head back to look up at Hank who was holding some magazine clipping out toward him. It looked to be a series of ads—the one in the center boasting a busty woman with most of her breasts poking out from some red, pin-up style corset. 

“What, you’re gonna buy me a prostitute? I can get my own...” There was no way he came all the way to New York City to bombard him with classified ads for sex workers. Honestly, Barry wished he’d cut to the chase and just say who he wanted dead this time.

“No, not _prostitute!_ Yuck! Disgusting word. Won’t even have it in my mouth!” Hank then decided the best course of action was to spit on Barry’s floor to prove his point. “See this here, Barry? This is ad for wife service! All the brides are special picked from my home country.”

“A Chechen mail order bride? That’s what you came to New York to tell me? That you could order me a bride from Chechnya?” Barry asked, staring up at Hank who looked baffled that he wasn’t over the moon ecstatic for the opportunity. He lowered the ad and blinked at Barry a few times, mouth open like he just didn’t know what to say.

“Well… Wh-What else do you do to stick it to ugly American girlfriends that stand you up and not put out? You get hot, Eastern European housewife. She know how to cook, she know how to clean, she know her way around the firearms. Take pretty pictures and put them on Instagram. Tag ex-American girl and make her jealous. Win her back.”

“You want me to… Let me get this straight, you want me to order a Chechen woman through this article...bring her over here, marry her...and then cheat on her with my ex-girlfriend? That’s going to end with me getting shot, Hank.”

“Why? Chechen bride gets green card—she look the other way. They are _good_ girls.”

“If they’re so good, why don’t you have one?” Barry asked, slowly laying back on his mattress to stare up at the cigarette stained ceiling over head. Things could never be easy for him, could they? He was cursed. He was just fucking cursed…

“Let’s just say, No-Ho Hank has enough trouble getting his own green card. Okay? Tell you what, I can see you are emotional. You are overcome with this _generous_ offer I have. I’ll leave this here for you and you can call when you’re ready.”

“You really came to New York to give me a flier about mail order brides?” Barry asked, not looking at Hank’s shiny, bald head even though he’d done his best to step into Barry’s line of vision. 

“No. Now _that,_ my friend, would be crazy. I am here in the Big Apple to do a little business that...it’s best you don’t know about. Let’s just say I have to visit Brighton Beach to see a very important man about a very important dog.”

“And you found me here...how exactly?”

“Funny story, you see! You remember Vascha? Well, Vascha has cousin, and that cousin has a sister—and she knows your face and she said she saw you here in New York City getting take out from Ming Peng. She call me, in Los Angeles, and she say, ‘No-Ho Hank—’”

“Vascha’s cousin calls you No-Ho Hank?” Barry asked, seeing too many holes in this story already and trying to figure out what was hidden inside them.

“Not Vascha’s cousin! His cousin’s sister! I can see you are not listening. Anyway—”

“His cousin’s sister is still his cousin, though...”

“—she said to me she saw you at Ming Peng getting the number fifteen special with extra rice and they not give you extra rice. So, long story short, I am here and from now on Ming Peng knows to give extra rice to Hank’s special friend Barry. _And_ to Barry’s soon to be new wife, Annya or Uriel.”

“Uriel? Like the...Little Mermaid?” 

“See! Barry can listen. Alright, so I leave this here for you. Also, Barry, this look...it’s not good for your new wife! Get a bed, okay? A good one...so you can break it in later, yeah? Haha!” 

“Okay, Hank.” 

Basically, Barry decided, Annya and Uriel needed green cards, and if he didn’t marry one, some thugs from Brighton Beach were going to feed him his teeth...or he’d be forced to kill them when they tried and all of New York would be after him, too. 

Fuck.

Hank left and Barry dozed off, feeling the weight of the world over top of him so much he didn’t need to bother with a blanket. When he awoke, he could hear his shower in the next room running—the jet of water crashing against the plastic louder than thunder. At least when it worked, he had water pressure. Finally, he was able to take his shower even though it gave him no release, the lukewarm water doing nothing to relieve him of the stress he was carrying—all the tension in his back. 

Maybe one of those ads would be for a massage parlor… Some cheap, lowkey place where the girls hardly spoke any English and no one there would look at him twice. He didn’t exactly need the Happy Ending that came with that sort of massage parlor, but honestly if one just happened upon him, he doubted he’d mind.

So, still naked and dripping wet from his shower, Barry made his way back to his mattress and picked up the page of advertisements that Hank had left behind. He’d circled the Chechen Matchmaker Service and helpfully underlined the phone number in red (and the slogan “beautiful, obedient BRIDES”). Barry looked past it and skimmed the other ads. Mostly it was sex lines and niche fetish classifieds—one even boasting “Beautiful Women, Sensual Feet!”—then the rest were just your typical scam. 

Barry flipped the page over and felt his brow quirk upwards when Professional Personal MASSAGE was scrawled in the upper right corner in neon pink. It had a phone number and address, and promised that all bookings were confidential. Good, he thought. So long as they weren’t Chechen owned or operated. He fully intended to dial the number and see about appointments when his eyes caught something else on the page—another set of dark eyes staring back at him from dead center of all the other ads.

Big, angry, dark brown eyes glaring back at him with disapproval. 

_It’s Never Too Late..._  
Accept Your TRUE Nature and Find RELEASE.  
Visit TrueBeg.innings.NET Today. 

There was nothing else in the little rectangular square—just those eyes and that text. The link… The mystery of it had Barry’s heart starting to race. His true nature? Wasn’t that what he’d been searching for in acting class with Sally and the rest? And the release… The freedom and complete surrender of inhibitions that his classmates had were all he craved.

Could this…

Could it be the same thing? It probably wasn’t an ad for an acting class tucked into the sex worker listings, but…

It was probably some porn site, Barry told himself, but he couldn’t resist the urge to see for himself. 

He typed in the link in an incognito browser on his phone and laid back on his mattress. If it was something stupid, he’d just call and set up a massage.

It was no big d—

“Oh, shit.” 

Barry clicked off his phone screen and stared up at the ceiling with wide eyes, heart racing. 

It was men. Men seeking men. Men in leather, men. Men in leather on their knees in front of men in leather. The ‘beg’ in ‘beginning’ was in all caps and red. True Nature was there, also in red.

“Oh, Jesus… Oh, _fuck.”_ His heart pounded as if he’d just been cornered by the police—like he’d been caught. He was embarrassed like he would be if fucking No-Ho Hank just caught him looking at that site.

And yet… 

And yet he clicked on his screen again and went back for more, staring in wide-eyed shock at the pictures fading in and out behind the text. 

A club? Barry thought at first. A dungeon? A BDSM Dungeon? He’d followed people to those a time or two for hits…

But no. That wasn’t what this was. It was a service. It was a matchmaker D/s service. 

“What the actual fuck?” Barry found himself scrolling and scrolling, Googling reviews and then going back to the site and scrolling. Professional Doms, professional subs, casual flings or something more: The Choice is ALWAYS Yours—fill out our survey and let us match you TODAY!

It was $29.99 for the survey and an additional $15/month for a Keep It Ca$ (as in both casual and possibly prostitution-al) account. You could get matched with their ‘professional’ Doms or subs, but it would cost extra to view contact info (however, pictures and video samples of their services were ALWAYS free).

Barry found himself clicking deeper and deeper into the site, reading How It Works information and terms of service—he read the terms of service more closely than he had his military service contract. It all seemed legitimate, but… Why was he so intrigued? He had no answers, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. 

Like What You See? the How It Works page asked him. If he paid the $29.99 for the survey and liked whatever person’s videos he got matched with (assuming it was one of the True Beginning professionals and not a Keep It Ca$ user), he could pay a refundable $15 fee for a phone call with the Dom/sub in question. If that went well, another $25 would buy him a video consultation. After that, it was “up to YOU! The Choice is ALWAYS Yours!” The professionals set their prices for their services and plans were always worked out based on individual client “needs.” 

To protect itself from prostitution charges, the only thing that was ever paid for were video conferences and consultations branded as “lifestyle counseling” with a shit ton of disclaimers about how the professionals were not actually medical or licensed mental health providers. (We can’t help you find out why you dream what you do, but we can make your dream come TRUE!) Members never paid for encounters with other users or professionals, and it was explicitly stated that no professional who worked for True Beginnings should ask for any sort of financial compensation prior to, during, or after an encounter. (But you can always buy them dinner first!) It was also listed in the terms of service that no user was to ask for compensation and that doing so would cause an immediate ban on the account with no refunds granted for any subscription fee paid.

Barry stared at the screen longer and longer. $29.99. That was it. He could blow thirty bucks and see what it got him—and if the Google reviews were anything to go by, it might actually be something interesting and new and worthwhile. If not, it was thirty bucks. He had more. He’d cleaned out the bed he’d stored up for all it had. 

Fuck it. 

It was late March but for what it was worth, it may as well have been January 1st. Here’s to new beginnings.

( ) ( ) ( )

Eddie Kaspbrak considered his separation from his wife Myra to be a game of chicken in which each of them behaved more recklessly by the minute while waiting for the other to back down first. However, while Myra started a beauty blog and bought into a pyramid scheme, Eddie had begun dabbling in a more...specialized trade. 

He’d been doing it for about fourteen months now and was feeling rather confident in what he’d managed to accomplish. He called the number on a business card he’d been slipped at a gay bar in Manhattan and his life had been changed for the better ever since. True Beginnings? More like _New_ Beginnings, and Eddie was loving every second of it.

His therapist might not always agree with his methods of regaining control in his life, but Eddie had managed to stop two different medications and was sleeping better at night since he began working with the guys over at Beg. It was a rocky start, sure, but it was all for the greater good.

You had to learn to submit to learn to Dom, and they all said Eddie was a natural. They didn’t know the half of that whole mess, but he preferred to keep it that way. He played the roles, getting more and more comfortable and confident each time, and then managed to take the reigns himself. 

Yeah, sometimes the guys who worked there seemed a little cult-ish, but once Eddie got the Prof/D badge on the forum, he didn’t have to talk to them anymore—or put up with their advances. It was an interesting little side hustle he had that made him some spare change, but more than anything it was a self-funding hobby. Whatever he got paid by Beg, he invested in his Dom space and the dates he took potential submissives on. He vetted his subs carefully, especially since the whole scene was so new to him—God, it felt like the whole world was new to him—and had three guys he was seeing. 

Well, ‘training.’ That was how Beg wanted it classified on his end. He was training submissives in a safe, professional environment so they would know how to go out in the world and get Doms or Masters who were worth a damn and not just creepy sadists out looking for victims to abuse. Eddie liked to think he was helping people…

He also liked getting off on the memories he had of things people let him do to them—even if he couldn’t let himself get off in the moment. Plenty of the Prof/Ds had sex with the users… Eddie’s just…

Well, he couldn’t. He just wasn’t there yet, maybe. He hadn’t slept with any of the trainers he dealt with when he came on to work for Beg. He didn’t have to. He got put down for it plenty, sure, and badgered, but he didn’t have to and he honestly felt a bit of pride in being able to tell the manipulative, pushy ones to fuck off. He didn’t care if other people on the site branded him the “Gold Star Virgin.” Maybe he was. Maybe it was none of their business. The three guys he was seeing didn’t care. The eight in total that he’d had in the eleven or so months he’d been a Prof/D didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, they probably appreciated not being hounded…

Eddie supposed that was why he only had up to three or four guys at a time and that this whole thing was a side hustle and not his main business. Anyone he spoke to who only seemed interested in the sex was...not who he was looking for. Not that he _was_ looking for anyone. Of course not… He wasn’t even really divorced. It was just… Well, guys who only wanted sex were so boring, so one dimensional. He was sure they were great outside of that, but he didn’t want (as a person, not even just as a Dom for Beg) to be seen as some sex object, some tool used to get off and be discarded.

Eddie really felt different about himself after teaming up with Beg. He wanted to find other guys who he could help to feel the same. He wanted to help them learn about themselves in a place where they felt safe and held. He had strict plans he followed, different increments he worked up to, and if a sub ever seemed like it was too much, they talked about it. They discussed it like a loan that wasn’t working out, or—or an investment they weren’t comfortable with. Maybe it was too high-risk. Maybe they weren’t really into the lifestyle but thought they might be and wanted to give it a try. Maybe they were more intense than Eddie was quite prepared for. He’d had his fair share of strange encounters. Mostly he saw a person a few times a month for three months or so and then they vanished into the wind and someone else took their place. (Feedback emails were required if a user wanted to stop seeing a Prof, and all of Eddie’s consisted of either jargon because the user didn’t feel like typing, or things like “can’t pay fee,” “changed my mind,” or Eddie’s personal favorite, “found a partner.” Those always felt a little bittersweet.)

So, with three users already being mashed into his schedule, Eddie was a little torn when he got a notification one afternoon that another match had been made. They really weren’t as common as you’d think since Beg was such a niche business that required money up front. It made it more likely that the people he was matched with were serious about it all, but he was still cautious as he opened up the app.

Oh… Mr. Blue Eyes. Okay. It was not exactly a flattering photo, but it didn’t have to be. Honestly, the guy looked like he’d taken a shower and laid down on his bed to snap the pic. Five o’clock shadow, choppy, dark brown hair. Big, deep blue eyes. 

He looked so tired and forlorn.

It wasn’t a picture of abs or a dick pic that somehow slid past the moderator software, though. That was nice.

Eddie skimmed over the survey answers while drinking his coffee, his salad neglected on his desk. Almost every answer was “Not Sure” or “Novice” for the skill rank and interests. There were some hard passes that Eddie could understand, but the core values all seemed to fit. There was a little spot at the end where users could type personal messages and that was typically Eddie’s make it or break it spot. If they couldn’t use proper grammar or spelling, or if they just sounded like a halfwit, he gave them a hard pass.

This guy, though… Mr. Blue Eyes (aka WhyNot-ShootShot, per his username), wrote a tiny, sad little blurb that made Eddie’s chest clench. 

“About me? Uh… OK but remember you asked. Marine Corps. Vet but don’t want to talk about it. Guess you could say I’m good at following orders. Maybe? I have no family and no friends except a bald guy who gave me the ad for this on accident. He’d probably kill me if he had the chance. I don’t know what I’m doing. I think I’d like to try being an actor. Someone told me once that I had what it takes. I don’t know what to put here. Your whole site is really vague and weird, but if I match with someone that would be cool. Would be nice to have someone to talk to.”

He was lonely and lost, and probably with a sprinkling of PTSD from his time in the military. Eddie couldn’t exactly say his trauma compared but...there were things he repressed. He was sure of it. Why else would that phone call from an old friend have him so worried, so distraught that he’d wrecked his nice, new Cadillac? Why, that whole thing led to the separation. 

Yeah, Eddie knew about PTSD. He _might_ be able to help. He was definitely a better man for the job than Ives or Boston. (Ives and Boston being the Doms he’d had to serve under during his initiation to Beg.) They wouldn’t have the patience…

So, Eddie accepted the match and queued up his reply template, making some changes so it fit User: WhyNot-ShootShot a little better. (Sending generic emails just made Eddie feel like a hack—or a con. It made him look like he didn’t care, and that wasn’t how you started things. Whether in business or in life.) The email offered dates and times for a phone call—something Beg worked out and would approve. He had to call through the app and it would only generate a phone number for him after payment was made for the call. 

A lot of matches backed out after that, and if Mr. ShootShot was as exhausted and disheveled as his picture made him seem, there was a chance he wouldn’t bother getting back to Eddie at all. A lot of them didn’t. But, if he was as lonely and sad as his message made him seem, there was a good chance he’d pay and make the call. 

Eddie would just have to wait and see.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be sexier but I can't not have awkward Barry. And I'm a sucker for slow-burn. So I'mma just leave this here. Perhaps we'll get physical next time.

There was no one with a gun to his head telling him he had to pick up the phone, Barry thought as he watched his phone screen light up. It wasn’t life or death, just fifteen dollars wasted either way. His heart was pounding though, like he was about to go stand in front of a crowd of people with no clue what his lines were. He didn’t really get stage fright, but this came close… 

He was wary about picking up the phone even though he’d _asked_ for this. He’d paid the fifteen dollars and he’d picked the time slot that “Worked Best” for him.

“C’mon. Stop being a fucking pussy,” Barry hissed, forcing himself to reach out and grab the phone off the corner of his mattress. He swiped his finger aggressively across the screen to answer it and barked, for no real reason, a harsh, “Hello?”

The regret was immediate and Barry came close to hanging up the call before the man on the other end could even speak.

“Oh… Uh, hi.” He sounded as taken aback and alarmed as would be expected, but even from those three noises (could they really be considered words?) Barry recognized his voice from the videos he’d watched. It was definitely the same man, not some con artist or random rep paid to sound like the actors in the videos. “Is this...the user? Is this, uh, WhyNot—”

“Yeah. Yes, sorry. I was… I was just on a call with a scammer.” Barry clicked his tongue and shook his head. How fucking pathetic of an excuse was that?

“Oh. One of those Nigerian Princes or were they trying to lower your energy bill?” The man asked, a little chuckle in his voice. He bought that pathetic excuse?

“Car warranty,” Barry said. His eyes were fixed on a crack in the wall near the corner of his bedroom. This other guy’s voice was so calm and relaxed. He was neither embarrassed nor nervous, and yet Barry was practically a shaking mess. His awkward, aggressive greeting was eating away at him more and more with each passing second, even if the guy bought his excuse and seemed unaffected. 

“Those are the worst! I always tell them I don’t have a car. They know I’m lying and it’s fun to see how worked up they get. They go over the VIN and everything. It’s hilarious to say ‘nope, not me.’ Or even better to start asking them if someone stole my identity if there was a car registered in my name.” He laughed more heartily now, like he was reliving some great memory. “Those are the best. Oh, gosh. I love doing that… ‘Oh, my God! Is my identity stolen!? Do you know who would’ve done this!?’ Oh, man… Too good.”

“Yeah… Yeah, that’s… That’s kind of elaborate? I mean, you have time to do that?”

“Sometimes. Most of the time I won’t answer.”

“Yeah… No, I picked up because I thought you might be early but I hung up on ‘em and...guess I thought they called back. So...sorry I took your ear off.”

“It’s fine. You’re in luck. It’s just me. And I don’t really care one way or another about your car’s extended warranty.”

“Cool...” Cool? Really? Barry didn’t think things could’ve gone worse if he answered the phone swearing. “Do… Do you have a name?” Barry wasn’t sure he was allowed to ask, but it would be weird if the guy started calling him by the long-ass handle he’d made up for himself on the website. He couldn’t remember what the Dom’s handle was, but it had something to do with Suits. He hadn’t been paying attention to the names. More than anything, he’d been focused on the man’s broad shoulders and big eyes. They weren’t the ones from the ad, the ones that caught his attention, but they were deep and big and friendly. 

He didn’t look like a big, startled deer with those huge brown eyes—no. He looked intelligent, fiery. 

“I do. It’s Dean.”

“Dean…” He spoke the name, thinking first of James Dean, then Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches. He forgot to eat again last night...and this morning. “I’m...Barry.”

He had planned to think of a fake name, but gave up. He probably should’ve been more prepared for this. 

“You don’t hear that name much anymore,” Dean said. 

“Everyone asks if I was named for Barry Manilow.”

“Oh, God… Were you?”

Barry let out a breathy laugh and shook his head. “No.”

“Well, that’s a good thing. Other than Manilow, it kind of sounds...manly. Barry.”

“Sure.” He didn’t really know how he expected this call to go, but he didn’t think his name would be a topic of discussion. He guessed that was kind of his own fault, though. He was the one who made the stupidly long user name. 

“So, what brought you to True Beginnings, Barry?”

“Oh. I don’t… I don’t know.”

“You said a friend gave you the ad? Or… Not a friend. You had a very interesting About Me, Barry.” The man still sounded so relaxed and calm, even as he started asking the questions. It almost felt like they were on some kind of coffee date. Just two guys catching up… Was that a tactic?

“Yeah… Hey, so, how does this work? Does this thing charge by the minute, or—”

Dean chuckled and Barry could hear something rustling on the other side of the phone. “No! No. This isn’t some sex line. Fifteen bucks for...however long we feel like talking. I just got home from the office so I’ve got nowhere to be. If we talk too long, though, you’re going to hear me making chicken and rice.”

“That sounds good...” He really should eat something, but Barry knew there was nothing in his refrigerator. He’d formed a comfortable habit of going to the Ming Peng, but he couldn’t exactly do that, now. Not with the Chechens watching it. God, Hank probably tortured the owner for forgetting his extra rice that one night. It was one time and they were backed up. Why did they have to overreact to everything?

“Mm-hmm. It’s not bad. I haven’t quite mastered chicken. I always dry it out.”

“Temperature’s too high… Is my guess. Depends on how you cook it.”

“Are you a good cook, Barry?”

“Probably not.” Cooking advice? How the fuck did their conversation move on to cooking? This wasn’t how things were supposed to go… 

“They didn’t stick you on kitchen duty in the Marines?”

“Not a lot. Even then, you’re cooking for, like, a hundred people. It’s not about quality. Just cook it, get it done, get it out.”

“That makes sense… So, tell me more about you. You said you were thinking about being an actor?” He actually sounded curious, like he wanted to get to know Barry even though it made him no extra money to take the conversation away from the fact that it all started on a fucking sex app. 

“Yeah. I was in LA for a while and I kind of found this acting class… I don’t think I was too great, but everyone kept saying I had potential. Kind of thought...it might be my calling.”

Dean asked all the right things to keep Barry talking, showing interest in the class and how it was run. He asked about classmates, the teacher, the book they studied, the scenes they performed. He actually sounded like he gave a shit about this acting class, which was something Barry did not expect when calling a fucking professional Dom from some men-seeking-men BDSM site. There was no reason for his interest or his questions. He wasn’t making more money by the minute. He wasn’t using anything as a segue into phone sex which was kind of what Barry had been expecting. Dean just seemed like...like another bored, lonely guy with nothing better to do with his evening than chat with a complete stranger. 

“So if you were in LA, what brought you out here to New York? Broadway?”

“Broadway… No. No, I needed a change of scene.”

“So you swapped palm trees and beaches for a concrete jungle and cold, frozen beaches?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Barry said.

“I’ve never been to California, if you can believe it. But I imagine it’s nice there.” Dean seemed to pick up on the fact that Barry didn’t want to talk about what brought him to the city and happily left the subject alone. 

“It’s the same as anywhere. Too many people crammed into small spaces.”

“Are you from Los Angeles?”

“No. No, I’m from Cleveland.”

“Oh! Well, I’ve been there. The company I work for has a branch there.”

“Yeah, you mentioned an office. So this isn’t your main source of income.” He laughed, Dean laughed. It was just so laid back. Barry felt the shakes slowly leaving him as he settled down on his mattress, dragging his blanket over his lap.

“Definitely not. I like to tell my subs it’s a...a self-funding hobby. Whatever I make, I put back into my equipment or spend on my boys.”

“Oh. So you have, like...a lot of them.” It would make sense. He worked for the website and it probably had some kind of setting that matched users with their people so the money spent stayed in house. 

“I wouldn’t say I have a lot, but I have enough to keep me busy. I’m not like some of the other Doms at Beg. I know one who has about seven or ten subs he works with. I couldn’t keep up with all that.”

“I’d have trouble remembering their names,” Barry said, trying to think of the implications of that. Seven or ten guys? Regular guys they saw and worked with? “So… So how does this work? Like, on your side? How does this work out?”

“How do you mean, exactly?” Still, that friendly and casual tone persevered. He was such an open and forthcoming person, and not in the creepy salesman kind of way. If it was all some tactic to get Barry to pay more money, he was a damned natural at it.

“You and the...the subs or whatever. How does it work out with you and them? The site is all, you don’t pay for encounters, so what do you even—”

“Oh! Yeah. Okay, so if I’m seeing you as—as arranged by the company, then you have to keep your subscription. It’s all in the terms of use, but if we’re matched and you come to sessions, then you stay on the app and keep your account. We communicate through the app, so if you deactivate, then we lose each other’s contact information.”

“And say I do that. Say I deactivate, but then I start showing up at your house or something?”

“Well, first you’d have to find my house. Then I’d call the cops.” Dean chuckled as he said it, like he really didn’t think he was in any danger meeting up with strangers for company sanctioned sex acts.

“Doesn’t it ever creep you out? Like—”

“I’m pretty particular about who I take on as a sub, so I’m not exactly worried. I mean, there’s risk in anything. I should know that…” He trailed off and paused, then cleared his throat and continued. “Everything comes with risk. I can kind of tell just from talking to you that you’re not—”

Not a threat? God, this poor idiot had no idea who he was talking to.

“—some scary creep who wants to show up at my house and torture me to death. But, you could just be a really good actor. That’s why I like to do a few phone calls, a couple video chats, and go from there. I don’t just jump into it with both feet. My subs aren’t paychecks to me, Barry. I kind of like to get to know them before we go too far. For both our safety. Does that make sense?”

“I guess it does.”

“I’m really not the easiest person to get along with and I’m old enough to know that. I don’t take it personally when a sub quits me, but if it’s after one session because my personality is annoying, it kind of feels like we wasted each other’s time. I like to get the chance to figure out who I’m talking to and give you guys—”

“Give us a chance to escape if you’re annoying?” Barry asked. He sounded so confident—so unaffected. Yeah, people don’t like me. Oh, well. Barry was numb to people’s opinion of him, but he didn’t think it really extended as far down into himself as it did for Dean. Dean just seemed so comfortable with who he was and what he did.

“Exactly! And as an aside, if I get murdered, the company has your credit card info. They’ll know we were matched. You’d get caught.” He chuckled when he said this, too, like he really thought he was safe in the world. If he only knew… 

“That’s true. So it doesn’t scare you? Meeting these people?”

“A little, sometimes, but… It was harder in the beginning than it is now. Like I said, I’m pretty particular about who I take on. The weird ones tend to give themselves away pretty quick now that I know who to look for.”

“Yeah, but what about people like Ted Bundy?”

“Ted Bundy?”

“He had pretty much everybody convinced he was some misunderstood victim when he was really fucking dead people’s decapitated heads in the woods. The really crazy ones are good at hiding in plain sight.”

“Barry… Necrophilia aside, I’ve seen his interviews and he was disturbed. No normal man bounces around like that if he’s been accused of unspeakable crimes. Also, breaking out of prison twice makes you look kind of guilty. He never once showed _any_ sympathy for the victims, either, I’d say he was as fucking obvious as a stop sign.”

“See, but you know all that because the documentaries and things you watch—you know he’s guilty. But if you didn’t already know—”

“Uh-uh. No. See, you’re not listening. He bounces around and acts like a caged animal in his interviews, right? All poor me, pity me. Look at me, pay attention to me, I’m on display. If I were accused of breaking into a sorority house and beating innocent young women to death, _assaulting_ them and leaving _teeth marks_ on them, I would not be all excited and hoping people see my face. Even innocent, I’d be horrified to even be _connected_ to something like that.” His tone of voice had changed, like he was really getting worked up at the idea of being accused of not recognizing Bundy as a monster on first glance.

“Okay, fair. But say you knew him. Would you still assume he was guilty?”

“What do you mean if I _knew_ him? His own girlfriend reported him once! _She_ knew! I’d know… I would. I can tell a crazy person when I see them. And I’ve lived in New York most my life. Trust me when I say this: I know crazy when I see it.”

“But did he seem crazy before he was accused? I mean, the longer he was in jail, the more out of control he got.”

“He was always out of control. People just put on fucking blinders to it.” Ah, there it was. He even admitted it. People saw what they wanted to see, not what was truly there. He would meet Barry, maybe, and see this big, aloof, harmless guy—unaware and unwilling to accept the horrific things Barry had done. “He was cocky and that made him weird.”

“Cocky people are weird?”

“If they’re like Ted Bundy then yes. Are you...like Ted Bundy?”

“Well… I’m pretty sure if I found a severed head in the woods, the last thing I’d want to do is stick my dick in it.”

“That’s good at least,” Dean said, laughing with good humor. “I can’t tell if you’re afraid I’m going to meet a serial killer or if you’re trying to warn me that you are one, though.”

The words shot through Barry’s chest and brain, almost paralyzing him. Serial killer… That’s what he was, wasn’t it? A serial killer but at someone else’s beck and call.

No, not who was was. Who he’d _been._ Those days were over, but… But time didn’t change who he was or what he’d done. Bundy was still a serial killer, even dead.

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see,” Barry said, earning another laugh from Dean. 

“I don’t think I like that too much,” he said, still chuckling. God, he was so fucking naive. Ted Bundy would’ve wooed and killed him in a heartbeat. 

“Well, if I show up with a cast on my arm or something, run the other way when I ask you to load my groceries.”

“If you show up, you’re going to be the one carrying my groceries. Isn’t that what you want?” His voice was suddenly lower and rough and it made Barry’s chest clench. “Or did your answers on the survey get skewed? It happens sometimes.”

“I… I don’t know,” Barry said. He took the survey and it started pairing him with their Doms. He didn’t exactly think one way or another about it. 

“Let me ask another one,” Dean said, his voice going back to normal in an instant. “What is it you’re looking for? You didn’t end up on Beg’s app with an account and a phone call on accident.”

“Sure I did. I slipped and fell on it.”

Dean chuckled and then let out a sigh. “Okay, well… In that case, how does it feel? Having taken that first plunge?”

“Uh...” That rough, deep voice was back again and for some idiotic reason or other, it had his brain turning to mush. He’d answered to a lot of men in his time. A lot. None of them filled his head with cottony static like this man. He just kept thinking of the videos he watched, the pictures he saw. They stirred something in him… Something that he wasn’t so sure had always been there, and at the same time wasn’t so sure it _hadn’t_ always been there. 

He had never, not one time in his life, envisioned himself bound in leather of his own free will. He’d had nightmares, sure, of being strapped to tables and tortured for answers he couldn’t give—answered he didn’t have. Nightmares, though. Anything his brain ever churned out relating him to bondage or pain was torture—the bad kind. The _real_ kind. What was he even thinking?

“Barry?”

“Sorry. Yeah. I don’t… I don’t know. I’ve never really done something like this before.”

“That’s no problem. I promise it’s a process. And a slow one. Do you have...questions I can answer? Something I can do to make you feel more comfortable?”

“No, I mean… I’ve never even thought about...this kind of stuff before. For myself, I mean. I’ve seen...other people do it. I just… I’ve never even been with a guy.”

“Oh. That’s okay. A lot of the guys I’ve worked with, it’s their first experience. I kind of prefer it, really. Makes things easier. I’m kind of new at it all, too. I was… I was actually married until about a year and a half ago. Not to get into specifics, but I’d certainly never seen myself in this position either.”

“Okay… So—So how does this work, then? You mentioned like calls and video and stuff, but then what?”

“You mean if you make the cut?” Dean asked, a little smirk in his voice—like he was teasing him. Somehow, that was better than the sickeningly sweet tone he’d had the moment before.

“Yeah. Say we meet and I’m _not_ Ted Bundy, then what?”

“So assuming you’re not a reincarnated serial killer, I would send you an offer for an encounter in the app and you would confirm a date and time. Then I would send you an address and you would arrive.”

“And then you reveal that _you’re_ Ted Bundy.”

“Yes. Then I take out my chainsaw and chop you into pieces. No. So this is how my process goes. It’s a little different from some of the other Doms, but, hey, I’m a thorough guy. So we have this call, then we have another, maybe. Then we’ll do a video conference and go from there. If that goes well, I’ll send you a little worksheet I have made up. The worksheet has questions on it that are a little more in depth than just are you a Dom, are you a sub. I use your answers to start planning encounters. Say you put down that you want to keep things tame—no impact play, for example. It would be shitty of me to start off an encounter threatening to beat you if you don’t listen, right? So I like my worksheets… Uh, yeah. So you fill it out, you put some goals on it. No problem if you can’t think of any. We can work on it together. Once I have the goals and you have expectations, I can put together a game plan. I like to plan four encounters at a time so you can—”

“Like a syllabus?”

“Yes! Exactly.”

“Are you a professor or something? Is that what you do?”

“What I do for work doesn’t apply to what you and I do together. Okay? Stay focused.”

“Sorry.” Barry looked off at the wall again, that jittery feeling coming back. 

“So I put together the syllabus and we’ll look at it together. Our first encounter is more about getting to know each other than anything. I like to make sure we get along in person, that everyone’s comfortable with what’s being said and what’s going on. Then, with your stamp of approval, we put the plan into action.” 

“And if I hate the plan, I can just...quit.”

“Yep. It’s pretty simple. You don’t have to even message me. The app is set up so you can just cut off contact if you feel the need to. It asks for feedback and I can see it, but you can leave it blank or give some constructive criticism. Like I said, I’m not the most experienced guy on the team, so your input does help. I wouldn’t want to do anything to someone that’s going to actually hurt them or scar them for life. That would...that’d just be terrible. You know?”

He said all the right things, and with just the right tone of voice. He sounded invested in Barry even though they hadn’t met or set anything up. By the time the call ended, Barry still wasn’t so sure if he would set up another phone call or if the curiosity, the intrigue had passed. 

He wasn’t sure… But he could still hear Dean’s tiny, carefree laugh in his head as he laid down on his mattress and stared up at the ceiling. Anything, he thought, was better than a mail order Chechen. 

( ) ( ) ( )

Eddie didn’t have high hopes that Barry, his latest match, was going to request another call. He’d had a lot of questions, but didn’t seem very engaged with the responses he got unless he was deflecting with an odd joke or relating himself to Ted Bundy. 

Maybe an ex-girlfriend had shot down his confidence by comparing him to that monster at some point. Whatever it was, nothing Barry had said was one of Eddie’s red flags. If anything, the man skirted all the usual topics that brought those out. He didn’t ask about the sex aspect. He didn’t even ask what sort of plans Eddie typically came up with for his submissives. 

If it _weren’t_ for the Ted Bundy comments, Eddie might’ve even though the man were a journalist who snuck into the platform to write an article about it—or an undercover cop trying to pin prostitution charges on him.

Two weeks went by since the call and Eddie was getting comfortable with the idea that a curious, lonely fellow was all Barry had been. Then, nearing the end of the three week mark, he got another call request from the man. It was unexpected, but Eddie accepted it. People needed time, sometimes, to figure out what they wanted. Or Barry just got lonely and bored again. 

The call was scheduled for later in the evening on a Thursday, and Eddie had just finished eating his dinner when he placed his call through the app, wondering if Barry would still pick up. 

“Hello?” A lot more friendly this time, that was for sure. 

“Hey! It’s Dean calling regarding that extended car warranty.”

“Didn’t I tell you last time? My identity was stolen,” Barry joked. He remembered. That was a good thing. Surprising, really, since it’d been well over two weeks since they last spoke.

“How are you?” Eddie asked.

“Good. Fine… Hey, I had a question.”

“Okay.” He sounded a lot more awake this time. Maybe he was a night owl...or drank some coffee. Either way, his interest was more obvious and Eddie guessed he must have come to some sort of decision if he was requesting calls with questions already ready to go.

“I know you have your process, but… Can we just meet? This feels really awkward.”

Eddie’s eyebrows shot up and he had to bite back a choke of surprise. He disappeared for over two weeks and then wanted to meet in person? No. Absolutely not.

“Uh… We can do a video chat if you’d rather?” Eddie wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to meet someone in person after one less than enthusiastic call.

“Can we do that? I mean… I’m pretty sure you’re who you say you are. That’s not the thing. Just… I can’t _read_ people over the phone. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here.”

“You’re getting to know me? And I’m getting to know you.” Read him? He really was making himself sound...suspicious. Why did he need to read Eddie at all? It was a service. All of Eddie’s cards were on the table. Something else was going on here and Eddie wasn’t so sure he wanted to know what.

“Right. So, wouldn’t it work better if we just met for coffee or something?”

“Remember that talk we had about Ted Bundy?”

Barry let out this loud, frustrated sigh that had Eddie rolling his eyes. He was awake this time, and clearly hoping to hook up. Eddie wasn’t so sure how he felt about this one. Part of him was tempted to throw him back to the queue and see if he matched with someone else. How did you go from not very interested to desperate to meet with nothing in between?

“I’m _not_ like Ted Bundy, I just… I-I don’t know anyone in this city. Okay? I… I just moved here and—”

“What about the not-friend who gave you the ad?”

“He went back to Los Angeles… I hope. God, I fucking hope he went back.”

“If you’re trying to make friends in the city, why not try finding another acting troupe. There’s plenty up here, I promise. I’ll do a video call if you want, but I’m not meeting up with you in person. Not this soon. You have to earn that.”

He made another noise, like a frustrated, trapped animal. He did, in a way, remind Eddie of Bundy. 

Not a good look, Pal.

“I-I’ll do video. Fine. How? How does it work?”

“In app or on the website? Let me get off here and I’ll send you a request, okay?” 

“Sure. Bye...” 

If Eddie didn’t know better, it would’ve seemed like they were two different people. Barry the last time had sounded so tired and uncertain. Now he was alert and awake and pushy. Eddie didn’t like pushy. Still, he ended the call and started setting up his little interview nook in the corner of his living room where his bookshelf and his potted plant could be seen in the background.

The background of Barry’s video was of dingy, chipped kitchen cabinets. His counter was the only place he had to put his laptop, he said, with no other explanation. He was definitely the same guy from the profile photo he’d uploaded, his blue eyes shining through despite the yellow glow from the overhead light. He looked a little better kempt than in the photo, too, with his hair kind of styled and a nice, button-down shirt on. Blue, like his eyes. His face was cleanly shaven, too—not a nick or scab in sight. 

“You look like you’re about to go to work,” Eddie said, smiling a little in hopes it would put Barry at ease. He seemed excited but nervous over there in his drab apartment. New York real estate wasn’t very kind so Eddie tried not to judge. On video as opposed to just over the phone, he could see it more clearly that Barry wasn’t agitated and wanting to meet, he was just...eager. He was grinning nervously and fidgeting like he was shy, but not annoyed. He wasn’t rolling his eyes or making rude comments at least.

“Yeah, no… No, I just got home a little while ago.” His tone changed as he said it, like he was making it up on the spot. His eyes even glazed over a little bit as he did. 

“Got home and decided you wanted to immediately go back out again?” Eddie asked, letting his suspicion come through in his tone. No nonsense, he was saying. He didn’t want any nonsense. 

“No. No, sorry about that. I…” He got that look in his eyes again, and was staring off at something beyond the laptop. He was trying to come up with a lie, Eddie thought. But then the haze stayed and Barry asked, “Do you ever just feel stuck? Like, trapped? Like you’re trapped in a tiny little box? Not even just your house, but...everything? Like your whole _person_ is just stuck in a tiny little box?”

“Um...” Eddie forced himself to look past the strange gaze on Barry’s face and the tone of his voice and thought instead about the question. Trapped in a box and trying to break free? “Yes. I do. I do know how that feels.”

“I’ve been stuck in this box for...my whole life, maybe. Just sitting in it, drawing on the walls like it’d make a difference. It’s still the same fucking box, just different scenery.”

“I know _exactly_ how that feels,” Eddie said, somewhat without thinking. It wasn’t the sort of conversation he expected to be having, so maybe that was what did it. Myra, Eddie thought, as soon as Barry mentioned the tiny, confined space in the world that Eddie was made to occupy for so long. Myra was just another version of his mother. He escaped one box and leapt straight into another. Different scenery, same song and dance. 

That was exactly what Barry started to describe. New York or LA, he was the same person in the same box but with different drawings on the walls. Trapped. Barry had just realized he was trapped and was clinging to Eddie in hopes that he’d somehow be able to set him free… 

That explained the frenzied tone, the eagerness to meet—the way he popped back up with such high hopes.

True Beginnings, in a way, had set Eddie free… Every single thing he did with his submissives, with the Doms when he’d been recruited, would make his mother turn in her grave—would make Myra have a heart attack. They were all things, too, that Eddie deeply enjoyed—things he’d craved without knowing it. Things that set him free… He could be who he wanted, he could do what he wanted without feeling ashamed or afraid or having someone calling him sick. 

“I know how that feels,” Eddie said after Barry finished another long spiel about what it felt like to be put into a box such as his and how people started to resent him for trying to climb out. “It’s like… I know that man, and I don’t want to be him anymore.”

“Yes! Yes… That exactly. And I feel like...no matter what I do, I’m _always_ going to be in this box. And just want something that—that takes my mind off it. Even if it’s just for a fucking hour.”

“But you realize that avoiding the issue doesn’t actually solve it—”

“That’s… That’s the point. That’s the point I’m making here. I-I want to change things. I want...I want to be different, be what I could’ve been or wanted to be. I don’t know… It just feels like time it running out.”

“Time’s not running out, Barry,” Eddie said, shifting around in his seat so he could lean a little closer to the laptop. He kept watching Barry’s eyes, those deep blue wells that seemed to show so much and so little all at the same time. “I know it feels that way sometimes. If… If you feel like this is something you want and that it can help you escape that little box then, I-I can push the process on a little.” It was something he swore to himself he would never do. He had a process and he wanted to stick to it—for everyone’s safety, but those blue eyes… They pleaded with him. They pulled him in. “I can send you my worksheet and if...if you like what you see, then I just ask that we do maybe a couple more video calls and then we can arrange to meet up. There’s no rush, Barry. I’m not going to give away your time slot or something.” Eddie smiled for him and Barry did seem calmer at that. Maybe he was afraid f he didn’t make up for lost time, everything would be ripped out from under him. 

For now, Eddie would give him the benefit of the doubt, but he’d use the next couple of calls to get a better feel of what he was getting himself into. 

“Okay… Yeah, I guess that would work. That could work.” Barry nodded and looked at the camera, his expression seeming to show that he finally realized how bizarre he’d been acting.

“Are you feeling a little better now? You were kind of channeling your inner Bundy there for a minute.”

“Yeah…” Barry glanced off at a corner of the room and then looked back at the camera with a smile. “I was going to, you know, wrap my head in bandages and ask you to come take a look at it, but I didn’t want to mess up my hair. No… I just—Yeah, I kind of thought, you know, I was gone for a while. I figured you’ve got limited time and someone else probably took my spot while I was being a wishy-washy asshole.”

“I told you, I’m pretty picky about who I see. If you can believe it, I haven’t had a match since you and me.” 

Barry seemed startled by that, his eyes going a bit wide. “Really?”

“I’m a little more mellow than most of the guys. I’ll admit, a lot of the users are looking for hookups and I’m just not about that.”

“I think… Yeah, I think you’re the one one who didn’t have his dick flopping around in the previews.”

“I… Don’t actually have sex with my submissives,” Eddie said, trying to gauge Barry’s reaction. It was something he made sure all of his subs knew going in, and it was a deal-breaker for most up front and others later on down the line. He watched Barry closely, but saw none of the negative things on his face. 

“I kind of picked that up from your video. It all seemed… I don’t know. It was like a cross between watching a porno and a cheesy instructional video like they show in school.”

“Ouch.” Eddie couldn’t help but chuckle. Alright, maybe he needed to revisit his marketing a little.

“Hey, I’m not complaining. It worked for me… Obviously.” Barry smiled at him in this almost shy way and it had Eddie melting a little. Whenever he showed a softer side of himself, Eddie’s stomach started to fill with butterflies and he had no real idea of why. 

By the time the video call had ended, those butterflies felt like they were about to be in need of paying rent. Eddie had sent him over the worksheet in the app and Barry’s face widened with shock when he looked at it. It was… He seemed so _innocent._ When Eddie offered to go through the worksheet with him, Barry declined several times over—seeming embarrassed by the worksheet, seeming embarrassed of Eddie knowing what he’d put on it. Cute… 

It was all very cute, but also very much like Barry had slipped and fallen into the app entirely on accident and wasn’t so sure how he got there himself. Most of the users had at least some idea of what they were looking for. 

Eddie was just going to have to wait and see.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our boys finally get in each other's space! This chapter has some internalized homophobia if you squint, but Barry is still just working some kinks out (pun intended) inside himself. Be patient with our curious man.

Barry didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. It felt as though he’d just woken up in a strange apartment in a strange city, no memory of how he got there or why he was there at all. Truthfully, it felt like waking up from a long, strange, intricate dream that grew more faded and hazy as waking hours ticked by. He wouldn’t go so far as to say he felt like a _different_ man or a _new_ man, but he felt more awake than he had in...months. 

When he touched the gritty counter tops in his kitchen, he felt them. He could feel the uneven, rippling pockets under his bare feet when he walked on the linoleum floor in his kitchen. When Barry opened his refrigerator to grab the little carton of creamer for his coffee, he could even feel the cold air gust out to greet his skin. As he stood drinking that cup of coffee while looking out his grimy window, Barry realized he remembered getting out of bed that morning. Why, he remembered getting the creamer that was in his coffee.

That was more than he held onto most days. Every moment before just felt muddled together in a numb, unending chain of events that he could hardly remember from one event to the next. He’d realize and untouched cup of coffee was beside his hand or an empty bowl would appear in his sink. More often than not it was an overwhelming pile of dishes in his sink that prompted him to just start buying disposable. Maybe that was part of the problem. He didn’t have to remember things if there was no evidence of them. He really needed to cut it out with the disposables, though. He didn’t need to throw out more DNA than necessary. Even in a crowded city like New York, it…

It what? He wasn’t a suspect anywhere. He knew better than to leave a DNA trail. He knew what he was doing… 

Until LA, he’d never even known the people he took care of.

Barry resented that the one downside of his strange, sudden alert state was his mind racing in circles around every kill—every shred of evidence he might’ve mistakenly left behind. Threads from his shirt? Maybe a fleck of hair? An eyelash? A fucking skin cell?

Moss had figured him out, and that was something that would haunt Barry forever. Her and Chris… People he knew. People he’d _liked._

He just wished more than anything in the world that he could do something, anything, to be someone else—to have never done what he had, to have never been who he was. 

Barry tried to chase the thoughts away by picking at all the broken things in his apartment. The floor, the cabinets, the carpeting, the rough patches in the drywall… He made up a list, then scrolled through local stores on his laptop. It wasn’t really his job to fix this shit, but he couldn’t stand looking at it. Barry had no vehicle in New York. He didn’t particularly need one which might’ve been why he’d settled on the place, but it did make getting what he needed and getting it all home more of a challenge. He couldn’t very well buy large, bulky items and expect them all to fit in an Uber…

That didn’t mean he didn’t try though, and boy was that chick pissed. 

He’d walked damn near twenty blocks to get to the store. There was no way he could make multiple trips on foot and get anything accomplished. 

Barry was in the process of fixing his kitchen floor when his phone started to chime and he was highly tempted to ignore it as it rang on the counter above his head to keep doing what he was doing. He felt alive and he felt _focused._ Right now, the last thing he wanted was interrupted by some car warranty scam or insurance scam or internet salesman. 

He did, finally, force himself to check the damned thing and his eyes went wide as he realized what time it was—what day it was. 

Dean… He was supposed to meet Dean for coffee.

Shit!

“Hey! Did you...get lost?” Dean asked, his voice warm and friendly in Barry’s ear as he stood there, dripping with sweat from working on the floor in an apartment he did not own.

“Uh… No, I… Shit. Um, I forgot what day it was.”

“Oh. Well, if you want to reschedule—”

“No—No, I mean...unless you do. Oh, shit...” He was over twenty minutes late to the cafe that was a fifteen minute walk from his apartment. 

“I mean...if you’re still coming, I can sit and wait.”

“Yeah—Yeah, I’ll be there. I’m sorry. I was working on a project and lost track of time, I guess. I didn’t realize… Wow.” He felt like an idiot. He felt like a moron any time he talked to this other man, and now he felt like he’d proven himself to be one. 

“I can be patient. Just message me your ETA in the app, alright?”

“Yeah… Listen, uh… I’m going to be gross. Like, I’m all sweaty and shit. Fair warning.” He couldn’t even begin to explain how or why he was so nervous, but Barry’s hand was shaking as he held the phone to his ear and listened to Dean’s oddly delighted little hum.

“Well, I am not unused to that. Most of my boys leave that way. Don’t worry about it.”

“Yeah, well, most of them probably don’t show up that way.”

“I’m just saying you don’t have to try to sneak in a shower before heading over. I really don’t mind. Maybe wear deodorant, though. Just for everyone’s sake.”

“Of course,” Barry said. Obviously he’d change and put on deodorant. He should be doing that now. What the hell… “I-I’m gonna get ready. I’ll text you.” 

The call ended with Dean chuckling at him and Barry had half a minute to realize how absolutely stupid and daft he was before he hurried into his bathroom to strip off his clothes and clean up as best as he could—as quickly as he could. 

Barry was still shaking a little as he made his way down the street, dressed in a fresh button-down and a nicer pair of jeans. It was nervous jitters—excited jitters—he told himself. It was a rush, though. That, he couldn’t deny. It was a rush walking down the street to meet another man… 

He was _meeting_ this guy. This went beyond curious texts and late night intrigue. He was actively going, in daylight, to meet this dude who wanted to hang him from the rafters and whip him or some shit. He was going _willingly._

_Eagerly,_ though he wasn’t quite ready to admit that to himself. 

His mind kept churning out weird fantasies of how this meeting was going to go—what Dean was going to be dressed like, what he would act like. In his head, Dean was a lot taller than Barry knew him to be from the stats on his profile. In his head, Dean was in a full suit for whatever fucking reason. In his head Dean, invited him back to his home—seemingly just so Barry could stress and obsess over how he was going to react if that actually happened.

He was almost all the way to the cafe when his phone chimed with an incoming message from Dean asking him if he was on his way. He forgot to text him… He forget to send the ETA. Oh, God, could he make a worse first impression?

Barry messaged back that he was just minutes away and that in his mad dash to get ready, he forgot to text, adding on a promise that he wasn’t standing Dean up. 

His reply was so cool and casual that Barry’s jitters became ten times worse. 

_I’ll let it slide for now. Enjoy this free pass while it lasts. If we do begin to have sessions, there are consequences for forgetting orders._

Oh, Jesus. What the hell was he getting himself into? 

His stomach was in knots as he finally pulled open the door to the cafe and stepped inside. The humid scent of coffee felt like a punch in the face. The place was bustling with people, and yet Barry’s eyes honed in right away on Dean. The man was standing off to the left of the coffee bar, smiling down at his phone. No suit as Barry had imagined, but a nice button down like his own with dress slacks and loosened tie around his neck. Dark blue… 

Barry froze as soon as he saw him, causing the guy trying to come in after him to shove him hard by the shoulders and order him to move it. The commotion got Dean to lift his head from his phone, his eyes wide and alarmed, staring right back at Barry who spoke halfhearted apologies to the asshole behind him that he kind of wanted to put on the ground—if only just to prove to himself and anyone looking that he was a man. 

He didn’t know why… It wasn’t like appeared meek and unassuming in anyway. The dude who shoved him was a short Italian guy and probably mobbed up. 

“Barry?” Dean said, sliding away from the bar where he was leaning.

“Yeah,” Barry said, feeling the dumb, nervous smile that spread across his face. The guy was so much smaller than him. How was a guy so much smaller than him expecting to—

“I was really starting to think you were fucking with me. Come on, let’s get in line before it gets any longer.” He gestured with his head toward the queue of people that was extending back toward the far wall. 

“This is, uh, a popular place,” Barry said, at a loss for what he should say. All of his scenarios had started much differently than this encounter. None of them included an irritated Italian man who was now giving him dirty looks over his shoulder from in front of them in line.

“Yeah… I didn’t think it would be this packed. I found it on Google.”

“You… You don’t come here?” Barry asked. He could feel the tension in his shoulders and forced himself to lower them, trying to look casual as he slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans. And, as he did, he realized Dean was watching his hands as he did…

This other dude was checking him out.

Barry came here so another _dude_ could check him out. Oh, holy fuck what was he doing?

“I tried to pick something a little closer to where you said you’d be coming from. I live a ways out of the city.”

“Ah… Okay. Yeah, I’ve never actually been here.”

“Seems like it must be good,” Dean said, shrugging and passing Barry a warm, honey-laced smile. His eyes were _so big._ Why were his _eyes_ so big?

“What… What do you usually get? I’m kind of a black coffee kinda guy.”

“I usually just just do a regular coffee or a coconut milk latte if I can get it.”

“Yeah? I never got into the alternative dairies...”

“Well, if I had dairy, this date would be cut _really_ short,” Dean said. He seemed so at ease, so comfortable. Even when the little angry Italian man passed a grossed out look over his shoulder at the mention of the word ‘date,’ Dean just smirked at him as if to say, ‘What are you gonna do about it?’

“You’re lactose intolerant then?” 

“I thought I mentioned that before… Yeah. I can’t have cheese or anything. Can’t do soy milk—that’ll kill me.”

“Shouldn’t say that too loud,” Barry said, without really thinking—and then laughed nervously to cover up the blunder, only serving to make it worse.

“What?” Dean asked, before gesturing to the little Italian guy with his eyes as if to ask if Barry thought the man would try to kill him with soy for being gay in New York.

“Well, if I’m Ted Bundy, you just told me how to off you.”

Dean laughed for that, this tiny little chuckle that made Barry’s stomach do a tiny flip. 

“I’m pretty sure Bundy wasn’t looking to have allergens kill his victims for him. Why are you so committed to that? You don’t look like him at all.”

“That’s what you say.” Why, why, why did he have to make every moment of his life this awkward? 

“Is that what your project was? Stashing the body of your latest victim.”

“No… I’m sure you saw it on the webcam but my apartments a piece of shit. I got sick of looking at it and started fixing the floor...” He realized how absurd it was without the help of Dean’s repulsed expression, thank you very much.

“Don’t you have a landlord for that?”

“He’s not going to do anything. They leased it to me in that condition.”

“Why not just move? Why waste the money?”

“To be honest...I just got sick of looking at it.”

Dean chuckled again and said, “Well, hopefully you don’t get sick of looking at me then.”

And, before he caught himself, Barry spluttered out, “Don’t think I could.”

What...the hell...was he... _doing!?_

Was there cocaine under the floor he ripped up? Vaporized alcohol he’d inhaled that him fucked in the head? He was here with another man, paying him compliments like a sleazy guy at a dive bar. 

Dean, however, just smiled in this smug little way and kept quiet as they were next in line to place their orders. He ordered first, then looked to Barry who somehow hadn’t expected the bill to be shared and blurted out the first thing that came to mind...which was the first thing on the menu his eyes landed on. Some frozen, blended thing that must’ve sounded so gay that it even had Dean giving him side-eye. 

Or maybe that was just in response to him taking out his wallet.

“I’ve got it,” Dean said, holding out his hand to block the ten dollar bill Barry had from reaching the cashier’s hand. 

“I can get it,” Barry said, looking at him dumbly.

“I said I’ve got it...” Those honey brown eyes went firm, and yet Barry was still locked in last conscious gesture—paying the barista for their coffees.

“I have it, though. I have cash.”

“I do, too. I’ve got it,” he said, smiling for the barista a moment before giving Barry that same, stern glare. 

The barista looked like she wanted to be anywhere else in the world than watching these two men argue over who was going to pay. 

“But I...I have the money,” Barry said, his brain not able to back down. He needed to hand her the cash. He had the money in his hand, and he needed to give it to her.

“Put it away. I have it,” Dean said, voice going from stern to downright commanding—like a parent to an unruly child. Even the barista looked taken aback. 

It did serve its purpose, though, and Barry found the bill lowering back into his wallet. 

Dean paid her and the two of them stood awkwardly side-by-side at the other end of the bar to wait for their drinks. They were silent, completely silent, as they waited and Barry felt like the entire date was ruined because his brain couldn’t get up to speed with the fact that Dean wanted to pay...because, in this relationship Barry had started with him, _he_ was the man.

He didn’t know how he felt about that… 

He didn’t _like_ that. Barry was still a _man._ He could put Dean in a choke hold if he had to, in a second. He could choke him completely out with very little effort if he had to. He was still a man…

Once his coffee—if this blended monstrosity could even be considered such—was in his hand, Barry looked from the whipped cream topping to the door. He should probably tell Dean he needed to go. He’d delete the app. He’d pretend this didn’t happen—

“I saw there’s a little park between these buildings across the street. Do you want to go sit with me?” Dean asked, all that darkness gone from his face. 

“Uh… Sure,” Barry said, still taken aback. All was forgiven, he guessed, with a seven minute silent treatment. 

They made their way across the street to the strip of grass with its black, metal benches lined up along its perimeter. It was as crowded as the coffee shop, but they did manage to get a seat without much of a hassle.

“Sorry about...that,” Barry said, gesturing to the cafe. “Sometimes my brain gets stuck in a...in a phase, I guess. I was, like, ‘I’m paying here’ and then you said no and then...my brain was still, like, ‘hey, I’m paying here; give her the cash.’” He was staring at his sugary mess of a drink as he said it, not even sure why he was apologizing at all. 

All Dean had to say to him was, “I always pay for my boys.”

“Right...” Because that’s what Barry was to him. One of his ‘boys.’ Because this was business… Barry was sitting in broad daylight with what was basically a prostitute and _he_ was the one afraid of fucking things up when it was pretty much a sure thing that they were going to...do whatever it was that they were going to do.

“I thought with you being in the military, you’d follow directions a little better,” Dean said, a playful tone to his voice though Barry’s mind was almost too far away for him to pick up on it.

“It’s been...a while.”

“You okay? Sorry, I...I probably shouldn’t bring that up. I know you guys see a lot of shit over there.”

“See a lot of shit over here, too.” He saw a lot more here than he had overseas… He caused a lot more here than he did over there…

“Well… Yeah.” 

Good, he’d made Dean uncomfortable. Perfect first impression.

“You know I...used to want to be a train conductor when I was a kid? So I could see more of the world than just my backyard.”

“Yeah?” Barry asked. He could admit, aside from murdering people everywhere he went, Barry did get to see a lot of cool, beautiful places.

“Yeah… My mom was always really over-protective. If I crossed the street without her she was freaking out. And I _mean_ it. I mean, crying, hysterics. The whole nine yards.”

They chatted for a while about childhood and friends and school, Dean becoming more animated as he drank his coffee and told his tales. Sometimes, Barry was even able to forget that this meeting was about something more than getting to know each other… It was a good thing, though, he guessed, that they were able to get along. It felt almost natural.

If circumstances were different, Barry might’ve even said the “date” went well. He would’ve gone home feeling optimistic, with fantasies playing out in his head about going to a fucking Pride parade or some shit with this man…

But that was Barry… A dreamer of stupid, irrational, impossible things. He was always doing that, always floating away to some fantasy world where things went exactly as planned—or sometimes he just saw things that were absurd, like himself walking hand-in-hand with this guy in the street. 

Dean was a professional escort, to cut to the chase, and Barry was a fucking murderer. It was a match made in Hell. He wasn’t here for a date or a romantic partner… He was here to explore...something else.

His heart pounded in his chest when he thought about it… What was he actually here to accomplish? Impress this dude so he’d agree to take Barry on as a client and let Barry pay Dean to batter and degrade him? 

God, he _was_ a fucking mess…

( ) ( ) ( )

Eddie didn’t know exactly what was going on with Barry. One moment he’d seem alert and present and excited, even, to be out with him. Then, the very next, he’d be quiet and withdrawn—almost like they were at a funeral. That was what it felt like… It felt like they were old friends who caught up with each other at a fucking funeral and every now and then it would dawn on Barry where they were and they’d both get quiet. Something about him just carried this sad, heavy weight… A dark cloud hung over him and showed in his deep, blue eyes.

Beautiful eyes. The very instant Eddie saw them in person, he knew he had to have Barry as a client. Barry _had_ to be one of his boys. There were things about him that made Eddie wary that they wouldn’t click in the D/s sense, but his instincts pushed him to banish those anxieties. He _had_ to have Barry. It _would_ work between them. He was desperate for it.

So, after they finished their coffee and what was supposed to be the conclusion of their meeting loomed near, Eddie blurted out that it’d be nice to get dinner.

“I’ll even let you pay since you’re feeling so up for it,” Eddie teased, smiling at Barry when his blue eyes went wide with shock. 

Eddie could tell other man liked him, too, even if that dark cloud settled on him now and then. Maybe he was just nervous or sad that their date was coming to an end. That was what Eddie told himself, anyway. Barry eagerly agreed to dinner and said he knew a place. 

He handled better when Eddie gave him the reins. He wasn’t so awkward and out of sorts. They took a Lyft to the steakhouse and Barry held the door of the restaurant open for him like a proper gentleman. He took over speaking to the hostess and checked in with Eddie before agreeing to any of the seating areas. Table or booth? High-top or low? Bar? It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Barry had never gone out with another man, even without the knowledge of him that Eddie already possessed. 

Barry was used to playing the masculine, traditional role—he didn’t know how to be on the receiving end.

Would he be like that in bed, too?

Wait… What?

Eddie shook his head to dispel the thought as he sank down into his booth across from Barry.

“You okay?” Barry asked, eyeing him from across the table. He looked unsure of himself, even still, and Eddie forced on a smile to put him at ease.

“Yeah! I thought I forgot my wallet but realized it was in my front pocket instead. Startled me.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah. I do that… It’s worse in winter. Pants? Coat? Which pocket, right?” Any time Barry said something like that, he looked ashamed of himself after—like he was embarrassed for speaking. Eddie would need to break him of that habit…

Positive reinforcement, for sure. He needed a lot of positive reinforcement before they even _thought_ about broaching the rougher stuff. Eddie would get that confidence back up where it should be for a guy with such beautiful eyes… Such striking features, really. 

Eddie sipped a glass of red wine from the bottle Barry ordered without really consulting him and stared at the other man over the rim. He was talking about Los Angeles. He always seemed happier when he talked about California. Eddie listened to him, sure, but he was drinking in more than his words. 

He wanted to smooth his fingers through the short, choppy curls on top of Barry’s head. He wanted to feel them on his skin. He wanted to feel them matted with sweat. He wanted Barry’s face twisted with pleasure and pain and all the things in between… 

Eddie _had_ to have him. He’d never felt this strong of a pull toward any of the others he’d met with or interviewed. It bordered on a fucking crush and Eddie had to stop himself mid-thought a time or two to make sure it wasn’t.

“So, Barry, you mentioned before that you...you’ve never really been interested in men,” Eddie said, using that as a foundation, something to ground him and pull him back from where his heart and mind were racing off to. 

“I don’t know… I guess I just—”

“There are plenty of dominant women out there. I mean, I’ve met a couple Dominatrix from our app before. They’re intense! Sometimes more than the men.”

“Yeah… I don’t—I don’t know. I don’t really like that idea, I guess,” Barry said, shaking his head and downing the last of the wine in his glass.

“You know, I… I mentioned before with how I run things, _sessions..._ It’s not always, or it doesn’t _have_ to be sexual in nature,” he said it as quietly as he could, not exactly shy but aware enough of his surrounding that he knew not to go shouting it from the rafters.

“Yeah, you mentioned that…” His blue eyes were searching the table, as if he just realized it was there—as if he just realized where he was and who he was with. Immediately, his hand latched onto the bottle of wine and he topped off his glass.

“Is that how you would prefer things to go?”

“I… I don’t know. I guess I’m just along for the ride. Whatever feels right in the moment.”

“Yeah, but if you go about it that way, it leaves room for _regret._ I don’t want to do things to you... _with_ you, that you’re going to end up regretting down the line. I don’t want to _hurt_ you, Barry. At least not mentally.” He felt the cruel giggle rise in his throat and it must’ve been the wine that kept him from being able to tamp it down.

Oh, he already had plenty of thoughts in mind for other ways he wanted to see Barry hurt. What did those pretty blues look like rimmed with tears? What did they look like pleading with him for mercy? What did he look like naked? Was he thick? Small? God, he’d be so cute with only a small, chubby cock between his legs. Eddie would so greatly enjoy toying with him about it—if, of course, Barry liked it that way. 

Wait… Why was he thinking like this!? What his boys had between their legs was never, _ever_ the focus of his sessions. Yes, they came in handy, but he didn’t sit across from them in interviews and ponder what their package looked like!

God, it had to be the wine.

“I don’t think you could hurt me any worse than I already have been…. Not much left to hurt, really. It’s not like I have a heart.” That cloud was over him again, stealing the light from his eyes. “Wow. Shit. Sorry. That got dark. I meant...you know.”

Eddie didn’t, but it worried him. Who hurt this poor guy? Eddie had interviewed quite a few men who wanted him for some kind of rebound or some kind of self-deprecating torture to punish them for their misgivings in their last relationship. He always turned those ones away… Too much baggage. Too much responsibility. He wasn’t a therapist, he was a Dominant master on a BDSM app. He was a man freshly out of the closet, working out his sexual repression. He was the last person who should be taking someone like Barry in hand.

And yet, instead of cutting the evening short like he knew he should, Eddie reached across the table to lay his hand atop Barry’s. The light came back to the other man’s eyes as he looked at their fingers.

“Barry… You definitely have a heart. And I can definitely find all kinds of places to hurt you that don’t involve it, if you’d like.” He tacked it on with a little smirk that made Barry chuckle just a little bit. 

“I thought you had a process, like, seven coffee dates and twenty dinners before you pick your...whatever we are. Whatever I am.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m my own boss so I can decide how long the process takes and if we can skip a few steps.”

“Last time I tried to skip steps, you gave me a lecture.”

“Well, I call the shots. Not you.” Eddie smiled at him and noticed, just the slightest bit, how Barry’s cheeks pinked up at that. “It’s going to take a lot of work for me to break you. Isn’t it?”

Barry’s eyes stayed fixed on the table, not hazy but not the brightest they had been either. 

“I read online that you’re not actually supposed to _break_ anyone in—”

“That’s true, but how else do you handle bad habits? I don’t ever intend to break your spirit or your will, but if you want to be _my_ submissive, you have to _actually_ submit.”

“Then you’re...gonna have to make me.” Barry glanced at him like it was a challenge—not realizing that Eddie had paddled a submissive to tears and dark, purple bruises over less. 

Oh, Eddie wanted so badly to see what Barry would look like under the force of a paddle, under the sting of a switch or the burn of a strap. He would definitely be the type to try to act tough, to try not to cry when it became too much… He wasn’t the sort of “tough guy” who collapsed into tears after a few love taps. There were different stages of subs, and some of them didn’t like to admit when things became too much—too proud or too ashamed, sometimes, to admit that they were in unbearable pain. Barry would be one of them, though whether out of pride or shame was still up for debate. Perhaps a mixture of both.

“It would be my pleasure,” Eddie said, delighting in the spark he saw in Barry’s eyes. 

He wanted it, too. He might not be ready to admit to himself that he was interested in men, curious in men, but his soul couldn’t lie. Barry looked so eager—like he wanted to conclude dinner and go back to Eddie’s special apartment for a little taste of what was to come. 

Oh, God. His thoughts were running away with him again.

Eddie pulled his hand back as casually as he could and grabbed his glass of wine—finishing it off. It was so hard not mixing business with pleasure when his was one in the same.

“So I’ll… I’ll see you again, then?” Barry asked, swallowing thickly while swirling the drink in his glass. “I passed the test?”

“With flying colors,” Eddie answered, smiling at him fondly. Barry deserved it. 

He looked so happy for it, too. His face didn’t move but his eyes lit up like he’d been handed an award. He seemed surprised, delighted and shocked. He had the look in his eyes that new hires at the firm got… 

It was a job, after all, wasn’t it? He was taking on the role of submissive. One of Eddie’s _multiple_ submissives. He was going to get no special treatment, no special favors… Eddie recited these things to himself as he and Barry walked together outside on the street, not yet ready to part ways. Barry leaned into him as much as Eddie leaned into Barry… 

Their hips and shoulders and arms brushed together far too many times for it to be casual. All Eddie wanted was to take him back to the apartment. He could propose it—he knew he could. Barry would say yes. All he had to say was he wanted to discuss the next steps.

He could look into those pretty blue eyes another hour or two more… 

Eddie had never felt this way toward anyone.

And that was why he patted Barry on the shoulder like they were old chums and told him he’d be sending over some more homework in the app tonight and that he hoped they could meet up again soon. Barry looked disheartened but the evening could end no other way. Eddie wasn’t taking him to the apartment when it wasn’t set up. His boy Ethan’s things were set out for their session tomorrow night… Some of them were admittedly a little intense and he didn’t want Barry to come in and see them lined up on the dresser. He also didn’t want to tuck them away just to pull them all back out.

Barry deserved the same treatment as everyone else. 

So they got into separate taxis and went home. Alone.

Or so it would appear. Before Eddie even got through his front door, he had a message in the app from Barry. He couldn’t deny it… His heart swelled at the sight of it, and not with his typical intrigue. Usually his submissives stoked a flame in him, a hungry one—they had to or it would never work out—but not one like this… 

Eddie laid in bed with his hand on his dick almost as soon as he slid between the sheets. Blue eyes… Blue eyes… He had to have him.

_Had_ to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading! I did not expect a single person to want to follow this story so I am so excited you're here!


	4. Chapter 4

In the same vein that he didn’t understand how he’d gotten the bright idea to rip up his floors and counters in the apartment he didn’t own, Barry couldn’t quite comprehend how he had landed here, at the mirror in his bathroom with nothing but his socks on, staring at the reflection of his hand which held a black, bulbous douche. Somehow, looking at the reflection of it and not the actual item in his palm made him feel the slightest bit...safer.

Was that the word? Safer?

Or did he just want removed from the situation all together? He didn’t really know how he got this far down the road in the first place. He was lost and he didn’t exactly want to sit and admire the scenery. 

Especially not when that scenery involved liquids being shot up his ass…

God, what was the matter with him?

Barry took in a deep breath and locked eyes with himself in the mirror. He looked terrified. He _felt_ terrified. It was as if the water in the bulb was napalm and he was about to mutilate himself, not water meant to make him clean. 

He needed to just bite the bullet and do it, though. He was meeting with Dean in a little under two hours, and this was the one task the other man had set for him. 

Perhaps his hesitation came from knowing that if he did this, he was moving forward. It was deliberate. It was more than going for a coffee or a nice dinner or lunch. It was more than an impromptu trip to the movies that caught him off guard. This meant he was agreeing to go forward with the next steps and he couldn’t just claim that it was on accident… He couldn’t tell himself he was just curious to see how it would all play out if he was willingly and actively shooting soapy water up his ass to make it ‘more hygienic’ for what was to come. He _knew_ how it would play out. It would play out with that other man’s fingers and toys going up there, too. 

Was he _really_ about to let that happen?

Apparently, because the next thing Barry knew, he was laying on his side per the instructions on the box and reaching behind himself to press the nozzle of the douche inside himself. He wasn’t sure who his theatrics were for, but he found himself grimacing and tensing for no real reason at all as it slipped inside. It didn’t feel _that_ bad, but for some reason he found himself acting as though he were climbing up the side of a mountain as he went through the ordeal.

_Better get used to it,_ another part of himself thought. The water was probably the least invasive thing going inside his body tonight… And even if a tiny thrill shot through him at the thought, mostly he was just anxious and uncomfortable and unhappy. The buzz he’d had from drinking while typing up the plans with Dean on Wednesday night was gone—now he was faced with the harsh reality that he was willingly cleaning out his _ass_ so he could go let some other _man_ stuff fingers and toys inside him…

What was the matter with him!?

By the time he felt ‘clean,’ Barry was dizzy and sore from laying on the floor in his bathroom for so long and he had three texts from Dean asking if the deed was done and how he felt. 

How was he supposed to feel? Elated? Aroused? There was nothing sexy about, essentially, making himself feel like he had diarrhea—even if he was positive his entire intestinal tract was clean after all that. 

Even so, he texted Dean that he was ready to meet up for dinner and ignored the part of the question that asked if he’d gotten himself clean and ready. That, however, didn’t mean Dean didn’t ask...the minute they were alone at their table in some swanky Italian restaurant.

“Uh… Yeah. I did….that,” Barry said, so taken aback his face was probably as dark red as his glass of wine as he nervously fit his white, cloth napkin into his lap.

“You know why I have to make sure, right?” Dean asked, smiling at him so deviously from across the dimly-lit table. The place had fucking candles on the table, like Dean was trying to woo him or something—like Dean wasn’t, essentially, the hooker Barry was paying. 

“Uh… Sure. Yeah. But...we’re at dinner? Like, isn’t that something—”

“I just needed to know if we need to make a stop at the pharmacy before going to the apartment.”

The idea that Dean had a whole separate apartment where he conducted this business was almost as mortifying as the question itself. Barry had imagined a hotel, maybe a nicer one, or some weird bedroom hosted by the app like a Las Vegas brothel, not for Dean to have his own second apartment just for his hookups. 

“We should be fine,” Barry said, grabbing his glass and taking a couple large gulps from it.

“You seem nervous.”

“What gave you that idea?” Barry snapped, setting the glass down and fidgeting in his seat. It felt like every nerve and tendon in his body was itching to get up and bolt for the door.

“If you’d rather just have dinner, I’m okay with that. We could take a walk maybe… There’s an outdoor art exhibit near my— Near… Near a place I know.”

Near his real home, Barry bet, or his office. But he let that slide.

“No. It’s fine. I’m fine. Just wish our food would get here.”

“We _just_ ordered,” Dean said, fixing him with a curious look as he raised his glass of wine to take the smallest of sips—just wetting his lips with the wine, really. “Barry… Relax. There’s no need to get all worked up.” He seemed so casual and cool…

Of course he did. No one was whipping him tonight or shoving dildos up his ass. Just what in the holy hell did Barry get himself into?

“How’s the remodeling coming?”

“The what?” Barry asked, whipping his head back around to face Dean who looked as cool and casual as ever while Barry was starting to sweat.

“The remodeling? You said you were putting down laminate—”

“Yeah, it’s… Yeah. I did that.”

“Nice! I bet it feels so much better having a nice kitchen to work in. I know I love my kitchen. Probably my favorite room in the house,” Dean said before taking another tiny sip of wine.

They talked about home decorating up until their food came, Barry about to burst out of his skin like an over-cooked hotdog the whole time. Why did he agree to this? He’d rather just keep meeting up like this—over dinner, over lunch, at the movies. Maybe Dean would let him pay some time. He knew he was the one pushing to go to Dean’s apartment, but now that the reality was looming near, he wanted to pump the brakes. Barry was practically a sweating, twitchy mess by the time dessert hit the table. Dean could see it, too.

“How about we take a walk after this? It’s nice enough outside.”

“I’m really fine,” Barry said, eating the dessert because Dean said he couldn’t have any. Why order a dessert you couldn’t eat? What _was_ this tactic? If it was to butter him up to make things go smoother later on, he could’ve just ordered a bottle of wine instead of one glass for each of them. Things would go better if he were drunk!

His mind was racing as he got into a cab with Dean and they set off for the apartment… The apartment where Dean met with other men…where he ‘trained’ his submissives. 

Barry had been curious at the start, he couldn’t deny that, but now it was almost too close for comfort and he wanted to run, wanted to bolt. And yet he sat in the cab with his head pressed against the glass, staring out at the streets like a melodramatic teen in a movie while Dean prattled on about how good the wine was at the restaurant.

If it was so great, why didn’t he buy the whole bottle?

The apartment, he was startled to see, was a nice one bedroom place with new appliances, nice carpeting. Nothing about it was drab or dreary—nor did it ring out ‘sex dungeon’ like Barry had been expecting. The living room had nice, casual furniture and even a television like they would just sit together and watch Netflix or something. 

Porn… It was probably for watching porn. Oh, God. Oh, no… What had he gotten himself into?

“Let me get you some water. You’re still looking a little out of it. Are you sure you don’t have a slight dairy allergy? It seemed like the dessert messed with you.”

“What?” Too much information all at once. Barry couldn’t keep up. “No. I guess I’m just...” He paused as a cool glass of water was pushed into his hands, Dean’s fingers brushing against his own. His whole body flashed hot at the smallest of touches—how was he supposed to handle what they’d discussed doing if a caress of fingers had his heart pounding already?

“It’s okay to be nervous, too. I’m nervous.” He said it with this cocky little smile that didn’t say ‘nervous’ at all.

_“You’re_ nervous?” Barry asked, sipping the water like it was bourbon and wishing it was. A good, strong liquor would help him get his head in order. 

“Of course I am. I’m alone with a man who might be Ted Bundy, remember?” He chuckled a little at his own joke, but it did nothing to put Barry at ease.

“Do you… Do you have more to drink? This isn’t cutting it,” Barry said, looking for a surface where he could set down the glass. There weren’t coasters anywhere…

“I… I don’t usually like to have a lot to drink before a scene. That can be dangerous, don’t you think?” Dean said—neither a yes nor a no.

“I mean, sure, if one of us is wasted or something, but I don’t see the harm in a couple of drinks—”

“I have some whiskey if—”

“Yes! God, yes. Where?” Barry was already making his way toward the kitchen cabinets. 

“Bottom… Bottom! Under the sink.”

“What, is it the fifties? Hiding your stash?” Barry asked, finding the bottle next to some cleaning supplies. Keeping poison with poison, Barry thought, as he read the bottle. This wasn’t whiskey… This was _scotch._ This was _good_ scotch… The kind rich mob bosses kept in glass decanters on their tables and desks for _special_ meetings. “Why do you have this?” Barry asked, unable to think to form the question properly.

“Huh? Oh… It was a gift from work. I don’t really drink so...” Dean chuckled and shrugged his shoulders, looking a bit bashful because he _really_ didn’t realize how much a bottle of this shit cost. A gift? A fucking _gift?_

“Have you had any?”

“Not really. I don’t drink much. I keep it here for the boys. There’s some Coke and mixer in the fridge—”

“Dean, this is… Mob bosses drink this shit! You don’t put it in _Coke!”_

“It’s not that nice. You’re probably confusing it with something else. It was a white elephant gift at work—”

“Well, it was meant for the boss and not for you then… Because this is...Jesus. Jesus! In _Coke?_ No...” Barry set about finding a proper glass and pouring himself a bit of the drink. 

“It seems pretty ordinary to me.”

“Do you see the big, white fifty on the bottle? That’s because it’s been aged fifty-years before they even bottled it. Someone got this at auction or inherited it or _stole_ it and didn’t know what it was, because you don’t _gift_ this in a white elephant exchange.” Unless…

The realization hit Barry all at once.

Unless it was a fuckin’ mafia white elephant. Did Italians do that? Dean looked kind of Italian, kind of mobbed up, if you looked at him right. Holy shit… Holy shit, he was about to sleep with a man from the mob. There was no getting out of this alive. He was going to get bumped off before his next birthday.

“Are you okay?” Dean asked, coming over to him and taking the bottle so he could look it over. His face showed no recognition, no realization. To him, it was just another bottle to be stored under the sink with his cleaners… Mixed with Coke.

Jesus.

Barry took a long sip of the scotch—smooth as it burned down the back of his throat—then replaced what he’d drank with a steady pour and then tucked the bottle back into its shameful hiding place. 

“Fine. I’m fine.”

“Okay… Well, would you like to sit with me on the couch? Get to know each other a bit more?” He was giving bedroom eyes and Barry had half a second to think about what all might’ve been done on that couch before he was shrugging and agreeing to go sit down. At least he had the scotch to hide behind. Thank God for small miracles. 

Somehow, as he sank down to the cushion, he felt as if he were kneeling before the guillotine.

( ) ( ) ( )

Eddie didn’t understand exactly why Barry had become as nervous as he had, but the alcohol was helping. Typically, he didn’t let his subs drink before a scene—at least not more than a glass of wine or a cocktail at dinner. With Barry, though, he looked like he was about to shake out of his skin if he didn’t get something in his system to calm him down. Eddie was already starting to come to the decision that they weren’t going to be having a scene tonight at all, which was partially why he offered to fill Barry’s glass for him when it was nearly empty.

The other man was so taken aback, they’d been chatting for almost an hour by that point, but he agreed—almost as if in hopes of delaying “The Inevitable” by having more to drink.

Maybe just a tour of the bedroom then, Eddie thought. Barry was new to this and it wasn’t unusual at all for the subs to be nervous. Eddie tried doing all he could to address their worries beforehand, but there was nothing that could really prepare them to be fed to the fire. Eventually, they would either let go and allow themselves the experience, or their fears and reservations would hold them back.

Barry was looking like the type who fell into the latter category, and Eddie really, _really_ didn’t want to let him go. If he walked out the door now, he would never come back. He’d go underground and try pretending none of this had ever happened. Eddie _knew_ it. He had to make Barry more comfortable with him. He had to make him feel secure and like he had a choice—not like he was latched to a car and about to be dragged down the street.

Eddie had an idea about what he could do to make things work, but he wanted to take it slow. Slow and steady.

For now, he was happy to sit on the couch facing Barry with one arm draped over the back of the couch so he could, now and again, brush Barry’s shoulder with his knuckles to keep him talking. He was telling stories about Los Angeles and acting class—he really liked his acting class and very clearly missed it though he hadn’t yet put that feeling into words—and Eddie made sure to coo or laugh or nod at all the right points to keep him going. It was really, remarkably easy to keep him going. If Eddie asked questions about his friends in the class, Barry would tell him more. If he asked about the teacher, Barry told him more. His blue eyes lit up so much whenever he was asked a question. He was hopeless in the wake of attention. He really just needed someone to pay attention to him. Eddie could see that clear as day.

He was lonely in New York. Eddie was his only friend in New York… Apparently the other men who worked in “auto parts” as Barry kept saying in response to whatever Eddie asked him about work, didn’t feel inclined to let him into their social circle. But, then again, something about Barry just didn’t scream ‘auto parts assembly’ to Eddie. He didn’t look like he worked retail auto parts either, at an AutoZone or the like… And he didn’t strike Eddie as a _mechanic_ either. His nails were too clean. He had no cuts or nicks on his hands. They were calloused, sure, but not in the way a machinist’s might be. 

Office work, Eddie thought. Professional… So why didn’t he ever mention being in an office? No water cooler chat? No new hires stinking up the place? No manager riding him to meet deadlines? Either Barry just really didn’t like to talk about work, or he was lying about what he did for some reason and didn’t want to be caught in it. That, too, was a question for another day… Or never. It wasn’t like Eddie had a right to know what his boys did outside of his apartment and their scenes. As long as they weren’t touching themselves without permission or breaking other rules, they could do whatever they pleased.

Once again, Barry’s glass had emptied and Eddie took it from him to set it aside on the coffee table. Barry, even a little more than just buzzed, seemed to realize what that gesture meant and he quit talking—all that doubt and uncertainty back in those deep, blue eyes.

“Would you like to come to the bedroom with me? So I can show you some things?” Eddie asked, his hand coming up to cradle the back of Barry’s head as though he were going to pull him in for a kiss, his thumb caressing the strip of hair near the top of Barry’s ear. That small touch had Barry turning into warm putty. If Eddie were any bit as cruel as Barry seemed to fear he was, he would’ve had the man tied to his bed in minutes. 

But, he’d save that for another night.

Still, he got Barry to follow him into the bedroom even though he seemed to hesitate by the doorway, to finish his tour of the place. 

“So, I have to ask that you stay out of this closet,” Eddie said, tapping on the closed door of the walk-in closet. It was where he stored the bins that had each of his boy’s particular toys and accessories in it. Eddie had found that even though his subs knew he saw other men, they tended to get jealous and insecure if they saw evidence of them around. “Can you do that?”

“I mean… I don’t know why I’d be snooping around in the first place,” Barry answered, eyes nervously searching the room. It was mostly empty save for the bed and furniture—that is to say, no clutter. No books, no fake flowers, no jewelry boxes. It was set up much like a hotel room with additional lamps so the room could be as bright or as dim as they chose, but with no place to really hide a camera. Eddie liked it that way. He hated the idea of video of him getting out that he wasn’t in control of. 

“Just promise me this closet stays out of bounds.”

“Is there, like, a guy in there? What’s in there? See, you can’t do shit like this. Now I’m just going to think there’s a man in there...” It was probably the alcohol talking, but Barry even through his hands up like he was so over this situation.

“There’s not a man in there. I can show you. Just...keep an open mind.”

“Oh, my God. It’s a dead person. Oh, Jesus Christ...” Why did he look serious?

“Barry… It’s my storage for—for my boys. For their things. See? Look.” He opened the door and clipped on the light, showing the stacks of clear plastic bins that had names written on note cards taped to them.

Barry didn’t seem all that interested in the bins, he just looked relieved that there was no body and no body parts. Though Eddie guessed it would be very serial killer-esque to have labeled bins full of trophies.

“That’s good… I feel stupid, but I got this idea that you had some poor guy in a cage in there or something.”

“Not my style,” Eddie said, smiling at him. 

“So if the closet is… _that,_ then what’s in all these?” Barry asked, slowly coming into the room a little more and fiddling with the handles on the dresser without pulling it open. 

“You can open them and see.” 

“Is this one of those things where I pick a drawer and that’s what happens? Because I’m not...” He didn’t finish his sentence because he was pulling open the drawer which meant he was faced with _his_ set of toys, or at least part of it. More would be added if things went well or as things were discussed, but each of the top drawers held different kinds of plugs and dongs and rings and smaller tools like clamps and pegs. The middle drawers would, at some point, hold harnesses along with the vegan leather cuffs that were there now. 

The bottom drawers, though, held Eddie’s things. Paddles, floggers, straps, crops—whatever he saw fit to use or try that night. He kept his assortment in the wardrobe that he _really_ hoped Barry wouldn’t open and scare himself with, but the ones in the wardrobe were out of bounds for the night. Only what he placed in the drawers or laid on the bed (if they couldn’t fit properly) could be used in the scene. He liked to make things simple. He liked to have everything laid out in black and white. For Barry – Not For Barry. For Now – For Later. It all seemed much less overwhelming for his shy subs that way. 

“I was thinking,” Eddie said, not missing the way Barry flinched at his voice as if being called back from deep thought, “that tonight, maybe, we could just talk some things out.”

“That...would be nice,” Barry answered, nodding a little. Eddie could see him letting out the breath he’d been holding pretty much all night. 

Not ready yet, Eddie thought, but soon. He would be soon enough, and Eddie wasn’t going to pressure him or rush him. 

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Eddie said, smiling at him as he moved to sit cross-legged on the bed. 

“Yeah, you keep saying that,” Barry said, even though Eddie hadn’t said anything remotely close to that all night. 

“You seemed excited before. What’s got you nervous? Just...the reality?” Eddie asked, keeping his smirk. He didn’t think it would leave if he wanted it to. Seeing Barry so fidgety and nervous was stoking a dark fire within him and he had to fight to keep the beast contained. All in good time… 

“I don’t know… I’ve never done this kind of thing. Like...any of it. Not… Not men, not with women… Just all new I guess.” He had closed the dresser drawer and was standing by the dresser with his arms crossed over his chest. 

“It can take some getting used to. I know I was nervous when I trained. It can be scary handing all that control over to someone else.”

“I just don’t want to look like a giant pussy,” Barry said, staring down at the floor while trying to appear casual when he was obviously feeling anything but calm and collected. 

“I don’t think you’re going to look like a giant pussy,” Eddie said, rolling his eyes. 

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m not going to chain you to the bed and flay you, Barry. Nothing I have planned to do with you is even that extreme—”

“Well, that’s what you say. But what if it’s extreme to me? What if I just don’t like it?”

“Then we stop and find something else that you do…? Your imagination is making it all worse than anything I can do to you.”

Barry didn’t exactly look convinced, but it was true. The anticipation was the worst part in the beginning. The excitement and the nerves mixing together could be downright nauseating. Eddie didn’t have what it takes to be a sub. Those anxieties never really left him during his training period with Beg. In his mind, that just meant he had a leg up on the other Doms. He knew what went through a novice like Barry’s head—someone so new to the scene and so inexperienced. He didn’t want made fun of put down, he didn’t want seriously injured or taken advantage of. It all made perfect sense to Eddie. 

“I don’t know… I already feel like a giant pussy so how much worse can it get?” 

“You’re not acting any different than the others. Everyone comes in with doubts. Everyone comes in with reservations. We can work through it, or, no one is making you stay. If you’re really uncomfortable, Barry, you can leave. No one’s going to force you into this.”

“I don’t know… I guess I’m just used to being the one planning things. So… So walking into this blind is really starting to fucking stress me out.”

“Anything I have planned is something we’ve discussed before. Remember? Our chat the other night?”

“Yeah, I guess...” 

They’d laid it all out then, what Barry thought he wanted to try, what Eddie proposed they do. 

“Would it make you feel better if you had it in more explicit writing?”

Barry clicked his tongue at that. “What, a transcript? Play-by-play?”

“Well, you’re an actor, aren’t you? I could make a script if that helps. ‘Scene 1: Barry enters apartment.’ Uh… Bracket, ‘something something, he isn’t nervous.’ How’s that?”

It got Barry to laugh, so Eddie took it as a win. 

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be in detail like that, but may it’d help. I guess I’m not good at improv.” 

“You just have to learn to loosen up. But I can help you with that, too, if you let me,” Eddie smirked at him, delighting in how slack Barry’s face went at the realization of what he was implying. He looked so cute when he was shocked like that. Eddie just _had_ to have him. 

“So… So I take it tonight’s off the table, huh?” Barry said, looking out the bedroom door into the apartment.

“I would say that’s safe to guess.”

“And...if I _hadn’t_ fucked it up—”

“Mm. Nothing’s fucked Barry.”

“Exactly. Isn’t that the problem?”

“Barry, this isn’t some Grindr date. Nothing is _expected_ of you. We plan, plans change. I’m more interested in making sure that this is what you want and that, if it is, that you’re comfortable enough to go forward. I don’t want it _rushed._ I don’t want it _coerced._ I want you to have a good time. That’s the only way I’m going to have a good time… And, right now, Barry? I’m having a good time.”

“We’re not even doing anything,” Barry said, looking at him almost suspiciously.

“We’re spending time together… Getting to know one another. I showed you how I operate, where I conduct scenes. I might be having little fantasies in the back of my head for what else I’d like, but if you rush a scene, you ruin a scene.”

“So… So this isn’t awkward?” Barry asked, his tone implying that it was.

“Not really. I kind of wish you’d sit down with me though.”

It was as if Barry hadn’t even realized his position in the room. His eyebrows shot up and he was stepping over to the bed and sitting down next to Eddie, mirroring his pose to sit with his legs crossed.

“So, you’re fine with this?” Barry asked, gesturing to himself. 

“What do you mean?” Eddie asked, not sure if he was gesturing to his body, his clothes, the fact that he was clothed, the shape of himself. Eddie was fine with _all_ of those things, but he needed more to go on than that.

“With...with this. With the night going like this after all the planning we did—”

“The thing about planning is, it never goes to waste. So we _don’t_ have a scene tonight? Oh well. I still got to spend time with you. I do _like_ spending time with you. Clothes on and all.”

“Okay…” He said it like it was unusual for someone to want to spend time with him. This poor man. Eddie was going to do what he could to get that confidence to bloom. Barry just had to open up and let him. “So… So if I weren’t a fucking mess—”

“You’re not a mess because you like to be sure of things.”

“Okay, but I doubt all your others come in here and back out after—”

“What I do with them or how they act with me is no concern to you. I don’t measure you against them. You’re different people. I couldn’t compare you to any of them if I _wanted_ to. Apples to oranges, right? Both fruit, but that’s about it. Stop worrying. Just ask your question without busting your own balls. ‘So if...’?”

“If we just… If I…” He couldn’t do it. Oh, this poor thing.

“What was the game plan?” Eddie offered.

“Yeah. Sure, yeah. If everything went smooth, what was the plan, I guess.”

“Well, I would’ve had you come in. We’d sit on the couch, drink some water… When you were more comfortable, I would’ve invited you back here. I’d show you the drawers, ask you about what you think. We’d pick out a few of the toys, if you’re willing, and then maybe one of the tools. We’d discuss how comfortable you’re feeling with the idea of bondage. I had the idea I would bind your wrists only this time, but in a loose knot so you break free if you struggle. I like to employ that to...kind of teach my submissives restraint and so they know they’re safe. I’m not _really_ holding you down, but you don’t need to try to break my bed frame either.”

“Yeah, sure. That makes...that makes sense.” Barry was now looking at the headboard, the wooden type that resembled a sideways ladder with many rungs where cuffs could be tied. Already, he looked a lot more comfortable. From now on, Eddie was going to give him the play-by-play scenario. Or at least until he was comfortable enough to not require it. 

“Good. So, from there, I would undress you—”

“With my hands tied?”

“I don’t need to take your shirt off,” Eddie said, quirking a brow at him. That got Barry’s jaw to snap shut and his neck started turning a little red. “So, I’d undress you _as much as I see fit._ Once I was sure you’re comfortable, I’d start to prep you...make sure you actually followed my instructions and got clean.”

“I did!” Barry said, face now burning with shame. God, he was perfect.

“Did I say you didn’t?”

“No, but—”

“Then did you need to interrupt me?” Eddie asked. Barry was quiet after that, his eyes meeting Eddie’s for a moment as he searched for either anger or frustration—anything besides the sternness a Dom was expected to have. Eddie could be soft and fuzzy if he had to, but he liked to set the expectation that when he _was_ the Dom, Barry had better try his best to listen before speaking. “I asked a ques—”

“No. Sorry. I didn’t realize… Sorry. Whatever. Yes. I’m listening.” Not quite ready to submit, but Eddie would let it slide. He was flustered and confused and a little bit drunk. Barry was probably doing the best he could.

“So I would prep you. I’d be gentle, of course. Not out to hurt you yet. We’d start with fingers, then move up to one of the smaller plugs that I have in the drawer—just to get started. Just to see what you think of that.” What he thought of it was starting to swell to attention in the front of his trousers, as if Eddie needed more positive affirmation.

Barry knew he wanted it, he just wasn’t ready to admit it to himself yet. Eddie had been that way once, too.

“I would take my time at that step. For a first session, most of the process is seeing how you handle different things. I’d play with you, get you comfortable,” Eddie said, scooting a little closer—moving closer and closer still the more he spoke while Barry stared at a fixed point on the wall. “Maybe get you on edge, and work up to bigger plugs and then maybe one of the other toys. We can see how you handle being fucked with one...” 

Barry’s breath caught in his throat and his eyes flicked from that point on the wall to the open doorway like he wanted to bolt. The bulge in the front of his pants, however, didn’t flag. He _wanted_ it, he just wasn’t ready to admit it… 

“But I’d make you ask for it first,” Eddie tacked on, reaching out to stroke his fingers through Barry’s short hair. “That way I know you’re ready.” 

“And… And that? That...” He couldn’t form his question, or apparently a coherent thought. He stammered a while then gave up with a heavy sigh, eyes still wide and staring off at the door. 

“We’d go slow… See what you’re into, what you’re not into. You’re not getting off that easy, though. I’d get you worked up and then put that toy aside and give you another plug. Maybe the same one, maybe bigger. We’d see what you can do. I think for a first session I’d start with my hand.” By this point, he was almost completely folded into Barry’s side and had taken one of the man’s large hands in his own—confirming his suspicion that these were not machinist hands. “Turn you a pretty shade of pink before we try one of the paddles. Hm? How does that sound?”

“Um… F-Fine. Good.” His throat stuck as he said it, and he was starting to sweat. His eyes weren’t fix on the door anymore like he was planning to sprint away.

“Yeah? That sounds good?” Eddie let his hand comb through Barry’s hair again before running his hand along the side of his neck to squeeze his shoulder, watching the goosebumps rise on his skin. 

“Mm-hmm.” 

“Are you sure? You look so worried about it.” False. He looked turned on, and his cock was practically throbbing. Eddie wanted little more than to reach over and squeeze it, just to see Barry squirm—but he wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t come just from the sudden, unexpected touch. He couldn’t set the expectation that every visit would earn him an orgasm just because. No, no… Each of those were earned, and Barry hadn’t done anything to deserve one tonight. 

“Not… Not worried. Just… Taking it in. I’m taking it in. Th-This… This helps,” he said, voice rough but with a bit more clarity in it. “I seriously thought you were going to chain me to the rafters or something. This sounds a lot better than that.”

“Yeah, I don’t have that kind of set up for you here, honey. We’ve got to do something about that over-active imagination of yours.” Eddie let his hand trace Barry’s thigh, smirking at the very obvious twitch against the tight fly of Barry’s slacks. “My favorite torture has nothing to do with whips and chains. Did you know that?”

“What is it?” Barry asked, swallowing thickly as Eddie retracted his hands.

“Keeping you on edge. Hopeful… So, so close but not sure if you’ve earned that release. Have you ever been denied before, Barry?”

“I’ve been interrupted a few times…” He knew exactly what Eddie meant and was dodging it on purpose. 

“You’re going to be tonight…” It was delicious, the way Barry’s eyes looked as the words made it through his brain. There was no doubt in Eddie’s mind that Barry really thought something was still on the table for him after pumping the brakes. Best to get it out of the way now so he didn’t feel more disappointed later. Oh, but he did look so disappointed. “It’d make me very happy to know that you don’t just go home and touch yourself. I can’t stop you…but I can hope you wouldn’t lie to me, right? If I asked?”

“That’s… That’s fucking mean,” Barry said, voice rough as he squirmed on the bed. He was still playing along with it, though. He didn’t snap at Eddie, didn’t roll his eyes or scoff. Dare Eddie say...he was trying to be good?

“Mm-hmm. It is mean, but that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? To earn it?” Eddie had never, with any of his subs, wanted to kiss one of them as much as he did Barry in that moment. The other man was shaking, physically _shaking_ with want—all because he was told he couldn’t have it. He was perfect. Barry was fucking perfect and Eddie would do anything to have him. 

Anything except break the rules he set for himself… And one of those rules was never to kiss.

At least not on the mouth. His neck, though, was fair game—and as soon as Eddie kissed it, just below his ear, Barry shuddered and let out this delicious, stifled moan before squirming away and rubbing at his neck.

“That’s not fair. You tell me no then go right for the neck?”

“What, is that your spot?” Eddie asked. How perfect.

_“One of them!”_ Barry was still rubbing at it as his body shivered. It was a good tactic to get Eddie to let him be. Eddie would let him have it for now. After all, he wasn’t evil.

“So… Next week, maybe? Would you like to plan something like what we talked about?” Eddie went back to stroking Barry’s hair, plucking at strands here and there just to see Barry’s squinty eye twitch a little from the unexpected tug. 

Barry hesitated a moment, his body giving one last shudder as it kicked back down into low gear, and he slowly started to nod. “Yes. I think… I think so.”

“Well, good. How about we message a little bit through the week and see if we can make a game plan.”

“Okay, but… Can you do one thing for me?” Barry asked. He was reaching between his legs to pinch himself—trying to be subtle about it as he forced his erection to go down as he squirmed around on the bed. 

“What’s that?”

_“Please_ stop mixing that scotch with Coke. _Please._ For me. I’ll even buy you some cheap shit. Just please, please stop ruining that scotch.”

Eddie chuckled and told him he made no promises. It all felt so...domestic. None of his submissives had commented on anything in his apartment requesting a change except one who had sensitive skin for the detergent he used with the laundry.

For Barry, though, Eddie would do it. Gladly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So close, but so far. They're trying! They're getting there. Thank you for reading! More soon! More fun stuff soon! And maybe a Hank sighting. I miss Hank.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted Hank to show up, but I also just really want Barry to get some. So he's going to get some instead. Have fun, friends!

It was over a week before Barry made plans to meet with Dean again. Part of it was the nerves, the other part was time simply escaping him. It felt like one day bled into the next and sometimes he felt it and other times not. He was in constant talk with Dean, almost more than before. It seemed all day his phone was lighting up or chiming with a notification from the True Beginnings app. 

Dean trying to make sure he made more money and secured another session… 

Barry knew that was the extent of it, but he had two, maybe three, calls in the week and a half after their first flop of an “encounter.” They chatted about Barry’s renovations project, him lying about how much he’d completed since he hadn’t touched it after the spell had passed which caused him to start it in the first place. Mostly, though, Dean asked about one thing and one in particular:

Had he touched himself since their session? Did he go home after he left Dean’s apartment and jerk himself off after being denied?

Barry didn’t know if he’d ever get the satisfied, cocky purr Dean let out when Barry said he hadn’t out of his head. He could practically see the other man’s smirk, tearing across his face. 

“Are you lying to me, Barry?” Dean had asked, voice still that low purr that had the hairs on the back of Barry’s neck standing on end.

“No? I mean… I’ve been told I have a pretty low sex drive. Haven’t really thought about it since that night.” 

It wasn’t exactly a lie and not exactly the truth either. He’d wanted to crank one out the second he got home from Dean’s apartment. He’d gotten in the shower, practically shaking again he wanted it so bad, but then the other man’s words started replaying in his head, over and over—louder than the sad rush of water from his shitty shower head. He couldn’t do it… 

Maybe he was sick or Dean had slipped him something in the scotch, but Barry couldn’t do it. Dean asked him not to and Barry… 

He didn’t want to let him down. 

It wasn’t some thrill. It wasn’t something that got him worked up, thinking about it or obsessing over it. He just didn’t want to be a fuck up. After resisting temptation that first night, it was easy from there on out. Usually he masturbated because he was bored or needed to fall asleep. Now he just spent more time laying on his mattress staring at the ceiling or messaging Dean in the app. There was probably a more productive way to spend his time, but for now that was all he found himself capable of doing. 

Maybe soon he’d look into getting a job… An actual job. He wasn’t made of money and living off his reserve was just a train wreck waiting to happen. The money would run out and then what would he do?

Truth be told, Barry didn’t think that far ahead. He kind of knew how his life went. As soon as he was about to reach rock bottom, someone showed up and thrust an opportunity upon him that he couldn’t refuse—not even if he wanted to. If not Fuches, then Hank or something like that… Barry didn’t want to do that anymore, he wanted a new life, but when his bed ran out, he knew his survival instinct would kick in and he’d do what it takes.

Hopefully he wouldn’t let it get to that point, but Barry had very little faith in himself. He was so...shortsighted. Even now, all he thought about on a day to day basis was Dean, not jerking off, and how he needed to fix his kitchen and buy himself something to eat.

It was the afternoon before his next “encounter” with Dean that Barry finally got actual groceries and not Chinese takeout or pizza or the leftover scraps in his fridge. They were meeting at the apartment at four o’clock and Barry was down a bottle of wine on little more than a bowl of minute rice and some pre-cooked deli chicken he’d splashed around in some teriyaki sauce. He’d meant to make himself fried rice and forgot eggs...and only got frozen peas instead of mixed vegetables.

Those peas would be in his freezer for the rest of his fucking life, he bet.

Barry was buzzed off the wine, but not enough that Dean should be able to tell. He was steady on his feet and he’d brushed his teeth while getting ready to make sure the other man wouldn’t smell it on him. He’d put on some cologne, too, just for good measure. When he got to Dean’s apartment, he’d ask for a glass of that good scotch and should be out of his head enough to let the night progress without getting in his own way. 

Dean wouldn’t want him drunk, but he had to lower his expectations if he actually expected things between them to work out. Barry was just too much of a control freak to let things happen naturally—at least this early in the game. He just had to make fucking sure that the other man didn’t see through his disguise.

Acting. He’d consider it practice for the stage. He was a buzzed man trying to become a drunk man without getting caught—he would _play sober._

Drunk, he established, was _much_ better than sober. He was in a good mood as he walked up the path to the apartment building, hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched a little from the chill in the wind. He rapped at Dean’s door after checking the number three or four times to be sure, and kept looking over his shoulder like a man being stalked as he waited for Dean to come to the door.

“Hey, you made it! Right on time,” Dean said, smiling at him as he opened the door. 

Barry didn’t know how to greet him so he just stammered out a, “Yeah! Hi,” as he moved around Dean to step into the apartment. Should they hug? Would that be weird?

They made small talk as Dean showed him inside and gestured to the couch. That other man was smiling at him, looking friendly and warm. It was the same look that had lulled him into a false sense of security last time—right before Dean started making moves and he’d panicked. It was scary how fast he’d turned from friendly and inviting to that...other persona.

“Did you get something to eat before coming over?” Dean asked, rubbing his hand along Barry’s shoulders before pulling back.

“Yeah. I did… I made something. Uh, chicken and rice.” Over-explaining, but what else could he do with Dean standing in front of him, smiling down at him as he sat awkwardly on the couch feeling too big for his skin and too small all at once?

How had he let himself get into this situation again? He was like a mouse crawling down into a snake den again and again, waiting for his luck to run out.

“You make it yourself?” Dean asked, his eyes fixed on Barry’s. Big, brown fucking glue traps. He looked so calm and poised and Barry felt like a little schoolboy caught peeping in the girls’ locker room. 

“Uh… I heated it up myself. Threw some teriyaki in there...”

“That’s not dinner. I’ll get you something.” He winked and stepped away, his hand falling away from Barry’s shoulder as he went over to the kitchen. 

“I’m… I’m really not that hungry. It’s fine,” Barry said, voice quiet, even to his own ears.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Besides, we need to get your blood sugar up anyway. Do you want a drink while I get you a plate?” 

“Sure!” Yes, thank God! “Do you still have that scotch or did you mix it with a case of Coke?”

“I told you last time that I would put it up. I’m nothing if not a man of my word.”

Barry could’ve moaned from how relieved he was just to see the bottle come out from a cabinet next to the fridge instead of beneath the sink next to bottles of cleaner. The glass Dean poured him was not nearly full enough, but Barry accepted it and did his best not to look greedy as he took his first sip.

What he was served couldn’t really be considered a dinner. It was a small bowl of fruit salad and a tiny plate of pasta that he later came to find out was made with chickpea flour and vegan Alfredo sauce. Dean was kind enough to give him another splash of scotch as they eased into the discussion about what was to ensue. 

Barry was thankful for the small glass of scotch just so he had something to hide behind while Dean’s hand closed over his knee. The heat of his palm soaked through Barry’s skin down to his bones. He could feel the thrum of alcohol in his blood as he snapped his eyes to meet Dean’s. God, he hoped the other man couldn’t tell. 

So far, it looked like he didn’t.

“So...I know what you’ve been texting, but here’s the real test: Since our last night together, have you touched yourself?” Dean’s hand slid further up Barry’s thigh and his heart skipped ten, twenty beats at the sensation of it—that hot palm sliding over the thick, constricting fabric of his dark jeans. 

“Not—Not really… No? I mean… I don’t—I don’t know what you’re asking me—”

“Oh, come on now. Don’t be shy. Is it booze? Is that the only reason you can text me about it but you freeze up in person? I’m starting to feel like there are two of you.” Dean was smiling, but it was wicked now—not that warm, friendly one he’d had when Barry arrived. Two of him? More like two of Dean. Two sides of the same coin… Wasn’t that what they both were? 

“No… No! Just...I mean, I-I’d start to...you know—”

“Touch yourself?” Dean asked, hand moving up higher again. He was so forward this time. What had Barry done to get him to punch the accelerator? It was probably all the messages he’d sent… Texting was easier. He didn’t have to _commit._ He didn’t have to do anything but fantasize and type it out. 

“Yeah. That… I’d start to, but then I’d think about what you asked and...and it didn’t seem _worth it?”_ Did that make any sense or did he just sound like a fucking pathetic liar? Maybe sounding like a liar was better. Maybe lying about it was better than admitting that he was so pathetic he couldn’t masturbate after some random wacko from the internet asked him not to. 

“Do you know what that means, Barry?” Dean asked, his hand leaving Barry’s thigh in order to brush his fingers through the hair above Barry’s ear. 

“Uh…” His eyes were frantically searching the room and he couldn’t help it. He had a feeling that the answers which came to mind weren’t what Dean would want to hear. 

“It means you’re learning.” 

The next thing Barry knew, Dean had leaned forward and was pressing a kiss to his neck. His skin prickled with heat and he was completely frozen—almost made dizzy from the sudden rush.

“Did you follow my other instructions?” Dean asked, his voice low—his lips so close to Barry’s ear that they brushed against it as he spoke. 

Assuming Dean meant getting clean, Barry nodded, still a little choked from the sudden closeness. 

“Good boy. Would you like to move into the bedroom now?” When Barry’s only response was a sharp intake of breath, Dean pressed another kiss to the side of his neck—lingering there a little longer. “Or we can stay here a little longer if you’d like. It’s up to you.” He pulled back then, hand coming up to just stroke through Barry’s short hair a time or two. 

He was being so gentle and soft, but his eyes were pitch black. He almost looked inhuman. A devil…

Or maybe that was just the scotch. 

“Are you gonna be pissed if I just knock this back first?” Barry asked, fingers clenching around the nearly empty glass still resting in his right hand.

“Do you need to do that to feel comfortable?” Dean asked, pulling back a little more.

Even drunk, Barry could hear the alarm bells ringing and he was able to casually shrug and say, “I mean, I don’t think I could feel comfortable knowing there’s about fifty dollars worth of scotch about to go to waste on your coffee table.” 

It got Dean to chuckle and lean in again, going back to brushing Barry’s hair with the backs of his fingers.

After that, Barry realized he just looked like he was stalling as he held onto the glass. He didn’t want to shoot it and leap onto his feet, but he didn’t want to just sit there and awkwardly sip it, either. He’d slammed on the brakes and he wasn’t exactly sure why.

“Would you mind if I had a taste?” Dean asked, his hand suddenly closing around the glass. There was hardly even a half of a shot left in it and Barry felt even more awkward as Dean pulled it away from him to finish it off himself in one slow gulp—and then grimacing like a novice right after. “Awful.”

“Do you want me to get you a Coke?” Barry asked, unable to bite back his laugh as he said it. 

“I think the time for that has passed,” Dean said, shaking his head before clearing his throat—smiling, too. Barry realized in that moment he liked Dean better that way than how he had been before. He wasn’t as...intimidating. Was that the right word?

After all, Barry could snap Dean in half if he really wanted to. He could waste him and no one would probably ever find out. Especially if he asked Hank for some help. Hank would help… Not that Barry really wanted _his_ kind of help or to pay the price he’d have to for it. But he could. Dean could act all tough, but of the two of them, Barry was the more dangerous.

Yeah, he was the dangerous one! What did he have to be so nervous about!?

Foolish.

“I’m… I’m gonna use the bathroom and then I’ll—I’ll meet you there?” Barry asked, gesturing his thumb toward the bedroom door. Dean smiled at him, that wicked grin again.

“That sounds perfect. I’ll get the room set up, so no need to rush.”

“I just have to pee,” Barry said, immediately giving himself away as drunk when he stood up from the couch and nearly tripped over his own feet.

Dean’s eyebrow quirked and Barry, thinking quickly through the haze, cleared his throat and sputtered out, “I’ve had to piss for, like, twenty minutes but I didn’t want to ruin the mood.” He hoped that lie worked as he scurried off for the bathroom before the other man could get a word in. 

His head was a small bit swimmy as he relieved himself, trying to listen to the noises outside the bathroom to get a sense of what Dean was doing. It sounded like a faucet was running. Why would a faucet be running? Was he doing the dishes?

More importantly, Barry realized as he was washing his hands, was he supposed to come out of the bathroom undressed? They hadn’t discussed this. He said not to hurry… Was he supposed to be doing something else?

“You’re overthinking it, buddy,” Barry whispered to himself. He dried off his hands and took a deep breath to get his composure before opening the bathroom door and making his way into the bedroom—now the only lit space in the apartment. 

Dean was still fully dressed which made Barry feel more comfortable, and he was fussing with a glass pitcher of water with just a few ice cubes floating around the top, two glasses on the nightstand next to the pitcher—only one of them full. The bed was made and there was a dark, almost royal blue blanket draped over the foot that Barry didn’t remember from before. He became fixated on that, desperately ignoring the lineup of sex toys that were on top of the dresser. 

“I fixed you a glass of water,” Dean said, peering at Barry over his shoulder. “Come sit down.” 

Barry shook off the last of his reservations and let out a (hopefully) quiet huff of determination as he closed the distance between himself and the bed. 

“That’s a...nice blanket,” Barry said, sitting down with a few deliberate feet of space between himself and the blanket in question—in between it and Dean who stood by the nightstand. Oh, Jesus Christ, he was laying out gloves and baby wipes and lube and... _Shit! This was happening!_

“You like that one?” Dean asked, always making sure to look Barry in the eye when he addressed him—no matter what he was doing with his hands. 

“Yeah. It’s a pretty color.” A pretty color? Oh, come the fuck on…

“Good. I’m glad you like it. It’s yours.”

“What?” 

“I said it’s yours,” Dean repeated, smiling at him—the friendly smile, the other side of the coin.

“Why is it mine?” Barry asked, looking back over at the blanket. 

“Uh… Did you particularly _want_ to have your scenes on the same blankets as my other boys?”

“Oh! No… I guess not. I...never really thought of it that way.” It was a fucking sex blanket. Oh, Jesus Christ. “You wash it, right?”

“Yes, Barry. I wash them,” Dean said, laughing like Barry had told a joke. Barry liked that laugh a lot better. “You look nervous.”

“No,” Barry said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, you do. Here. Drink some water.” The full glass was being pressed into his hand, Dean’s fingers lingering over Barry’s way longer than was necessary. “Don’t feel the need to down the whole thing. I just want to make sure you’re hydrated.”

So Barry drank his water while his heart tried pounding its way out of his chest, while Dean moved over to the toys on the dresser. The drawer opened and Barry found himself taking a deep, nervous breath as he watched the other man stand there a moment before putting two or three of the toys away and taking out a different one from a different drawer in their place. 

“In the nature of _explicit_ consent, I just want to make sure that you...understand what we’re doing here tonight,” Dean said, turning around to face Barry, his hands on his hips now. 

“I… I read the—the thing you sent,” Barry said, blinking up at him and fidgeting around with the water glass in his hand. 

“And?”

“And...it sounds fine. I mean...if I don’t like it, I can just tell you to fuck off. Right?”

“Right,” Dean said, nodding and shrugging his shoulders casually. 

“Right...”

“Barry, I promise after this it gets easier. It’s not always going to feel this awkward,” Dean said, as if reading his mind. Though Barry had to guess that, right now, he was probably an open book.

“God, I hope not. I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack,” Barry said, looking away from him and staring off at the wall. 

“How about we just sit for a minute until that passes, hm?” Dean asked. He was taking off his watch, the jingle of the metal calling Barry’s eyes back to him, and laying it down on the dresser beside the sex toys. Then Dean was sitting side-by-side with him, their thighs touching. “Are you feeling comfortable with this?”

“Yeah. I’m just...acclimating.”

“Good. That’s good.” He reached up to start petting Barry’s hair again. He pulled moves Barry only saw himself being bold enough to do in daydreams. And what was worse, they were working. “You smell so good. What is that cologne?” 

“Uh… Not sure.”

“Barry, will you look at me?” 

When he finally did, the other man looked humored and had that wicked smirk back on his face again.

“What’s got you nervous? Hm? Is there anything I can do?”

Barry messed with the glass in his hands, then took another long drink from it—stalling for time—before handing it back to Dean who set it down next to the pitcher. 

“How can I help?”

“I don’t… I don’t know. I just feel—this feels weird. Is it supposed to be like ripping off a bandaid or am I just—”

“Well, it’s a little like a bandaid...and a little like being in the mood.” It was impossible to miss the way Dean looked to Barry’s dick which was not quite rising to the occasion either.

“I don’t think the mood’s the problem,” Barry said, knowing that if Dean got that idea, he’d slam on the brakes like last time and invoke another chastity rule. 

“Your tone implies something else is the problem,” Dean said, his hand coming to rest on Barry’s back, rubbing up and down between his shoulder blades like he was consoling him. Maybe that was it. 

“I just… I don’t know. I’m not used to this, but isn’t there, like, foreplay or something? Or do I just sound like a woman?”

Dean laughed and slapped on the back. Hard. 

“Well, there would be, but you make me nervous.”

“I make _you_ nervous?” Barry asked.

“Every time I touch you, you freeze up. I don’t want you doing things because you think you have to.”

“I freeze because I’m trying not to fuckin’… You know.” Barry gestured to his dick, so out of his element. He had no idea what he was doing. That was the issue, he decided. He was out of his element, had no control of the situation, and no idea what he was even supposed to bring to the table besides his fucking flesh. He knew how to please a woman—or at least he’d like to think he did. He knew how to set a mood, how to start things, how to end them… Right now, he had no idea. He was on stage with a script he’d read, but now could hardly remember. He was standing in a surgical ward, preparing to cut into a patient with literally no medical training. He was—

“You’re overthinking this, Barry. And you know why? Because you don’t want to let go… Well, you _want_ to, I think. But you don’t know how. Do you? You don’t know how to let someone else take care of you for a change. We can fix that.” He was petting Barry’s hair again, and the touches were starting to become...nice. Less awkward. He was less focused on the fact that it was another man touching him and just experiencing the sensation of fingers caressing his scalp. “Would you like me to get started?”

Dean’s fingers were on the button of Barry’s collar, toying with it—preparing to pop it open but waiting for his cue. 

Barry was still lost in the slow, stroking circles on his scalp behind his ear when he uttered a simple, “Yes.”

( ) ( ) ( )

“Should we, like, kiss or something?” Barry asked as Eddie pushed him firmly on the shoulder to get him to lay back, finally stripped of his clothes save for the dark boxer briefs he was clutching onto for dear life. 

“I have been kissing you,” Eddie said, trying so hard not to give in. He’d had little more than Barry’s lips on his mind since they parted ways the last time, and it was becoming increasingly harder to resist the temptation with him here now. 

“I meant like...on the mouth, or—no? Oh. Okay.” He was trying really hard to be good, Eddie could tell—but mostly he was just nervous and out of his element. Maybe even scared. His eyes were so expressive. 

Eddie was trying to get him calmed down and eased into it by kissing every bit of flesh he’d dare—his jawline, his neck, his collarbones, his shoulders. Every bit of skin revealed to him was like a new treasure he wanted to explore with his lips and tongue. That had never happened to him with one of his boys before. He like them all, sure, and he found them very attractive, but not like this. Typically, Eddie’s brain swelled with pleasure and a sense of power when he had his subs laid out beneath him like this. He would fantasize about what he was going to do to them, how he was molding them and freeing them, but that was the extent of it. He didn’t hyper-fixate on any one part of their body and have to fight himself to keep from kissing them.

It was _business._ With the others, it had always just _felt_ like business. Mutually beneficial, albeit potentially high-risk business. With Barry… God, there was nothing all that _special_ about him. He was the sort of man you’d pass on the street of New York and probably never give a second glance, and yet Eddie was ~~practically~~ literally drooling all over him. He had some sort of magnetic pull to him that had Eddie fighting to keep from going under. This wasn’t some hookup or one night stand—this was _business._ He needed to _act_ like it.

“Is it okay if I take these off now? Or would you like me to tie your hands first?” Eddie asked, his fingers coming to trace the elastic band of Barry’s shorts. The other man’s eyes went wide—wider than they already were—like he’d just been asked to drop trou in the middle of a department store. 

“Are… Um, are you going to…? I mean...” Barry looked at him, then flicked his eyes to Eddie’s dark-colored briefs.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Eddie answered, keeping his face stoic. As things progressed between them, which Eddie deeply ached that they would, he would keep layers on. It drove home the point that the submissive was the vulnerable one, the exposed one. There was nothing more satisfying than the moment a sub was able to present himself, fully bare and vulnerable, without looking nervous or embarrassed or ashamed while Eddie stood over him in a full suit—dress shoes and all. One day, he might get to have that with Barry. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to have Barry spread out for him while Eddie watched over him in one of his better suits… 

If he tried that now, though, Barry would absolutely freeze. He had to see that they were the same first. He had to see that they were both just men, both just assuming a role that meant nothing outside of this bedroom and this space. 

That was the part Eddie was grappling with now, he realized. It meant nothing outside this space… And that was why he couldn’t let himself get carried away and kiss Barry when he asked. They weren’t a couple. They would never _be_ a couple. This was business. Barry was here to learn—learn about a culture and learn about himself—and Eddie’s job was to instruct him. Taking things any further than that would be akin to a teacher taking advantage of a student. It would be despicable. 

“I don’t… Maybe tie my hands first then. I don’t know… I don’t know. Is it like ripping of a bandaid? Should I just say ‘fuck it’ and get it over with?” Barry had turned away from him, his eyes losing that wonder and light they’d had for most of the evening—ashamed of himself for not knowing what to do.

Eddie was _failing_ him. He was too distracted to do what he was supposed to and take charge and it was making Barry doubt himself. He needed to step the fuck up. 

“We’ll leave them for now,” Eddie said, letting his fingertips slowly rake down Barry’s left thigh from waistband to hem, then pulled back to get the scarves he wanted to use to tie Barry’s arms. 

“I mean, is that—”

“You’re thinking too much, Barry. Just relax. When it feels like the right time, you just let me know. And if _I_ feel it’s the right time, I’ll ask if you’re ready. How’s that?”

“Well, what if I’m not? What if I’m just never ready?” He was looking at Eddie again, his tone starting to sound argumentative because he was beginning to panic. 

“Then it’s going to be really hard for me to finger you tonight,” Eddie said, keeping his expression as blank as he could though he felt one of his eyebrows quirking regardless. That shut Barry up pretty quickly. “Okay, so these are for your wrists. They’re very soft. They don’t knot very well.” He was showing off the scarves, dark blue to match the blanket they were laying on. Barry’s scarves. 

“Those are just like...they’re like—you get those at Macy’s.”

“You could, yes,” Eddie said, biting back the smile on his lips because Barry just looked so confused. “Anyway, they’re very soft. They shouldn’t leave any abrasions or bruises. They’re very soft so they come untied very easy. Just like we talked about. Remember?” Eddie placed one of the two scarves into Barry’s hands so he could feel it. Touch helped keep things in check—helped keep his submissives present. Especially the nervous ones. “So, for tonight, there’s no point at which you’re fully tied down. Okay? You can get free if you feel you need to, but let’s see if we can get through this without you breaking free on accident more than...let’s say six times.”

“Six?”

“They come undone _very_ easily.”

“Okay… Okay. Sure.”

“Do you have any preference for where you’re tied? Arms above your head? Out to the sides?” Eddie gestured to the rungs on the headboard, which had Barry craning his neck to see them. 

“Uh… Above my head maybe? Like, here?” He tapped at the first two rungs closest to his pillow with the hand still clutching the scarf. “I just hate the thought of how I look with my arms spread out. Like a giant, pale science project…” 

Ignoring his self-deprecating comment, Eddie nodded along. Barry was self-conscious about the way he looked in bed. That wasn’t uncommon. He would fix that right up. “That will work. May I?” He held out his hand for the scarf Barry was holding and the man fixed him with another one of those wide-eyed gazes. It was almost as if he kept forgetting what he’d come here for and was shocked every time Eddie reminded him. 

Still, he held his wrists where he was supposed to and only jerked a few times on reflex as Eddie leaned over top of him to bind his wrists loosely to the headboard. He watched Eddie work, that wide-eyed shock never leaving his eyes, even after Eddie ordered him to tug on the scarves to test their hold.

One small tug still held him secure, but three or four more and his wrists were free.

“So does that count as one of the six times?” Barry asked, staring at the naked skin of his arm.

“No, Barry. It doesn’t. I’ll let you know when it counts.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t have to worry.”

“Okay.” He sounded no more reassured the second time. 

Eddie tied his wrists up again, then pulled back to admire the view—always making sure Barry could see the admiration on his face, see that Eddie was pleased with him as well as the knots. Barry being who he was, couldn’t handle the attention.

“Am I...supposed to be doing something?”

“Yes.”

Barry looked so shocked by that, absolutely mortified and it was cruel but it made Eddie laugh. “What? What am I supposed to be doing?”

“Everything I ask.”

“You didn’t _ask_ for anything!”

“Exactly.”

“So I’m supposed to just lay here and let you stare at me?”

Eddie fixed him with a look, but otherwise didn’t answer. Barry understood and his head flopped back against the pillow with a heavy sigh. 

“When I want something from you, I’ll tell you. And, if you want something from me, you’ll ask for it. Okay?” 

Barry’s silence and the way his eyes were searching the ceiling told Eddie more than enough. He was so out of his element and so insecure he didn’t even know how to reply to that statement. 

“For example, you could ask me to please take these off for you when you’re ready,” Eddie said, letting his fingers trace the hem of Barry’s underwear again. “Or, if you’re uncomfortable or don’t like something, you can just say, ‘Dean, I don’t like this’ and we can stop.”

“Aren’t there supposed to be, like, safe words or something—”

“Well, yes. Down the line, but right now I don’t want you worried about etiquette and ‘supposed to.’ If you’re uncomfortable, I don’t need manners. I need to hear that you’re uncomfortable. But, if you’re just being a needy brat, I expect some good behavior and some manners. Make sense?”

“Okay… But what if, like, my arms fall asleep? Is that being needy or is that fine? I don’t know what I’m doing! I’m not fine. I am fine… I don’t know why I said that. I’m fine.”

“Barry… Stop thinking. If your arms fall asleep, you can just say, ‘Sir, my arms fell asleep.’ And then I can take them down and you can rest. But if your arm gets, I don’t know, a cramp and it hurts and you need it down, just tell me. ‘Dean, I’m uncomfortable. My arm hurts.’ We take a break.”

“And you don’t get annoyed?”

“Why would I be annoyed that your arm is hurting?” Barry didn’t answer him. “There’s a difference between slight discomfort and something being _wrong._ Okay? I know you can tell the difference. Even down the line, if we’re at the point of safewords. You’ll know that all you have to say is ‘yellow’ or ‘red’ and we pause or we stop. There’s no, ‘Barry, you said the wrong thing now get out of my apartment,’ or ‘Barry, you said red when you meant yellow.’ I just need to know that something is wrong so that I can take care of it. And you need to trust that I will take care of it without being upset with you. Limbs fall asleep. Muscles get cramps. They’re going to happen, but they’re not really part of the experience. At least not with me. Make sense?”

“Yeah… Yes. Okay. I think I’m more… I get it now. Thanks.” 

“Good. So, would you like me to take these off for you?” Eddie couldn’t help but to smirk as he ran his hand over Barry’s thigh, feeling the plush skin over firm muscle. 

“Yeah...”

_“Yeah?”_

“Shit. Sorry. Yes. Uh… Yes, _Sir?”_ He knew he was supposed to say it like that, but he was still acting weird about it. He didn’t want to submit. That was fine. Eddie would get him there. He’d get him used to it. A real scene or two would help, too. Most of his subs didn’t start taking it seriously until they were properly punished for it. Hopefully Barry wouldn’t make Eddie spank him to tears to get such a simple lesson through his head. But even that would be tasty. 

“Good boy. From here on out, let’s try to remember those manners. Okay?” 

“Okay...” His eyes were searching Eddie’s face, not quite yet sinking in. “Okay, but wait. Wait, wait! I have a question.”

“Okay.” ‘Okay’ was not a ‘yes, sir,’ but for Barry, Eddie found himself letting it slide. It didn’t seem intentional. It seemed like his mind was on something else again. 

Panic, it turned out. He was in the midst of an internal panic because he didn’t actually have a question, he was just stalling because he was nervous. The “ready, set, go!” method did not work for him at all. It looked like Barry needed to be eased in. 

“Barry, let’s just use our manners unless we’re hurt. Okay? Can I get a ‘yes, s—”

“Yes, Sir. Yes, that’s...fine.” Aw, at least he caught himself. 

“One yes is enough. Okay?”

Barry had his eyes squeezed shut as he said a simple, “Yes, Sir.” 

“Good boy. Now, can I take these off for you?”

Another quiet, “Yes, Sir.”

“Can I get a ‘please’?”

“Fuck...”

“You’re doing fine,” Eddie said, smoothing his hand up and down Barry’s thigh to keep him comfortable. 

“Please, Sir? See, now I just sound like Oliver Twist.”

“You need to stop caring about how you sound because _I_ don’t care. I want manners. Since it’s your first time, I’m not going to humiliate you by making you ask with a full sentence. Next time, though, when you’re ready, you’re going to say to me, ‘Please, Sir, can you take them off for me?’ And then I just might do it if you’re sincere enough. Okay?” 

Barry’s neck and chest turned dark red while his cheeks only became a faint pink. It was beautiful seeing him without his shirt. It was so obvious when he was blushing now. 

“Fuck—shit. Yes. Sir. Yes, Sir. Shit...” He kept muttering the obscenities to himself as he stared off at the ceiling, the tenting at the front of his underwear telling Eddie exactly what the problem was.

“That’s better. Now, let’s take care of these.” 

Barry groaned like he was about to get a shot at the doctor’s office as Eddie slowly started to pull his underwear down. Eddie was always excited for this part, more so than he really should be. All those years of repression had him inexcusably giddy for the chance of looking at another man. How big would he be? What shape? Cut or uncut? The mystery and the reveal always had Eddie fascinated. Barry, obviously, was no exception. 

The difference with him, though, was for whatever unholy reason, Eddie’s first thought upon seeing the reddened, flushed head of Barry’s cock, was that he wanted to put it in his mouth. Usually, he’d see them and just want to touch, stroke the shaft and feel the soft skin against his palm. Usually, he just wanted to feel it. With Barry, his very first thought was to imagine the weight of it on his tongue. 

What the _hell_ was that about!?

Eddie made sure to get himself composed as he folded Barry’s underwear once they were off and set them aside at the foot of the bed. Barry had his eyes squeezed shut, every muscle tensed to the point Eddie feared he’d get kicked on reflex if he touched him. 

It was worth the risk, though. That small, half-hard prick was too tempting to just leave it lying there. 

“Oh, fuck… Jesus Christ. Shit… Wait. Wait!” 

Eddie pulled his hands back, making sure his face was blank and not showing his fascination—almost feeling a little caught himself—as he looked up to meet Barry’s worried gaze.

“Sorry. No. You didn’t have to stop. I just… Am I allowed to talk? I know there’s the whole ‘speak when you’re spoken to’ thing—”

“Did I tell you to speak only when spoken to?” Eddie asked.

“Uh… I don’t...think so?”

“No. I didn’t.”

He looked mortified and his cock immediately started flagging. 

Warmth, Eddie immediately reminded himself. He had to show Barry more warmth than that or he was going to bolt. 

“I keep telling you that you’re thinking too much,” Eddie said, leaning over Barry again to stroke his cheek, meeting that worried gaze with a gentle, patient one of his own. “Let me do the thinking. You just show me some manners and tell me if it hurts. Okay, Barry?” He had his thumb caressing the corner of Barry’s mouth, tracing the lip he so badly, badly wanted to kiss.

It’d never been like this before…

“Okay. Shit… Okay, let’s just… Let’s just start this over. Starting now. _Starting now.”_

“Uh… _Action?”_ Eddie offered, getting a nervous laugh out of Barry that was much preferable to the worry. “Is it okay if I move your legs? I want to touch you.” 

Eddie could appreciate that Barry actually thought about it before he would answer. Always long pause before his eyes would twitch open a little further when realized he needed to speak, or realized what he wanted his answer to be—surprised with himself maybe? 

“Uh… Yes! Sir… Okay. But, like, how?”

“Barry, let me do the thinking. You just tell me when you’re uncomfortable.” Eddie didn’t bother commanding another ‘yes, sir’ from him. He just let Barry realize what he was doing to himself every time he interrupted. 

Finally, Eddie got Barry’s knees bent so he could spread his legs—something that had Barry going back to his tensed like he was waiting for a car accident state—and then finally let his hand come to rest where he wanted it most. Barry was so sensitive that the slightest brush of his fingers along the shaft had his cock springing to attention. It probably helped that he hadn’t been touching himself. It was so easy to tell when a sub had disobeyed. Their cocks always gave them away and yet despite how familiar they should be with their own bodies, they never seemed to figure out their own tells.

“How does this feel?” Eddie asked, slowly circling his hand around Barry’s cock and just barely stroking it—not applying nearly enough pressure to give him any real pleasure.

“G-Good… Good, Sir? I think… Shit.” 

“It’s alright. I’m glad it feels good for you. It’s bigger than I thought it’d be.” That was a line he used on every sub, and it worked like a charm to make them comfortable.

Except Barry… Because, as Eddie was learning, nothing with him was simple.

“What’s that mean? It’s… I’m proportionate. I don’t...I don’t drive, like, a giant truck or something.”

“I didn’t say I thought you were _small;_ I said you’re even bigger than I thought.”

Barry muttered something else about being proportionate and Eddie rolled his eyes when the man wasn’t looking at him to see it. Eddie continued getting Barry used to his touch, gently stroking up and down, and squeezing now and again before he moved his hand lower—cupping his balls and gently kneading them until Barry was finally letting out little gasps and moans. 

“Is it okay if I get some lube? I’d like to keep touching you...here, maybe?” Eddie asked, letting his hand dip a little lower to gently massage little circles against Barry’s perineum. He kept making those slow circles until Barry quit muttering swear words to himself and finally opened his eyes to answer.

“Okay. Yes, Sir. That would be...okay.” 

“Good. It won’t hurt. I promise.”

“Alright...” 

Eddie had to remind himself that Barry hadn’t been with men before the way most of his submissives had. He needed to be more patient, more gentle. More first partner, less Dom—at least for now.

Eddie took his time, getting his glove on while Barry gave him weird looks—probably afraid Eddie was going to try shoving his whole hand up there or something—lubing up two of his fingers and making sure the liquid was warmed before reaching back down between Barry’s legs. 

“I’ll go slow, okay? It won’t hurt.” So long as he relaxed… Which was what Eddie really needed him to do. 

“Like going to the...doctor’s office.”

“Exactly. Only better, I hope. And you, uh, might want to report that doctor if he’s touching you like this,” Eddie said, tracing Barry’s tense rim with the slick tips of his fingers. His breath caught in his throat any time Eddie would swipe directly over the opening, already tight hole tensing even more. Barry was breathing heavily and twisting his wrists a little in the scarves, but being good so far and not pulling them down. It still took quite a few minutes of gentle massaging before Eddie could press the tip of his index finger against the rim without Barry hissing and going rigid, though. And, once he finally had relaxed, Eddie gave him only a slight warning before pressing his finger fully inside. He let it rest there a moment, just until Barry quit tensing up, then started pressing it in and out at a slow, steady pace. “See? Not so bad.”

“No… Not bad.” He was breathing heavily, still getting himself adjusted. It was a while before they’d worked up to two fingers, and by that point he was just panting. His wrists still hadn’t come free though, and Eddie never missed a chance to tell him he was doing well. 

“I’m going to add one more finger, okay? And then once you’re alright with that, I’m going to get one of the plugs. Alright? Alright, Barry?”

“Yes, Sir,” Barry said, swallowing thickly. Eddie didn’t miss the way his inner walls clamped down whenever he said ‘Sir,’ whether consciously or not. 

“You’re doing so good for me,” Eddie said, his free hand stroking up and down Barry’s pale thigh as he watched his fingers slip in and out. He wished there were a way to show Barry how good he was doing beyond the praise. It was hard to demonstrate with fingers, but once the scene concluded and they’d hopefully worked up to one of the bigger, girthier dongs, Eddie would be happy to show him his progress. Remember when you were whining at two fingers? Well, look at you now. Soon he’d be whining because fingers weren’t enough. “I’m going to add the third finger now. It won’t hurt.” 

For the most part, it didn’t seem to. Barry grunted as the two fingers were pulled out and then swiftly reinserted with the third, but otherwise didn’t clamp down or tense up. 

“You keep behaving like this and I’ll have to give you a reward later,” Eddie said, meeting Barry’s eyes and smiling at him. Barry stared back and gulped, clearly not sure what that meant or if he should like it. “You’ll like rewards,” Eddie tacked on. That seemed to put him at ease and he let out another heavy sigh while Eddie focused on fingering him open, watching his digits slip in and out against Barry’s crinkled rim. Slow and measured, just enough to keep Barry’s attention but not so much that he would start to get worked up. His cock was at half-mast, which was a good state for it to be—curious, but not in control of all of Barry’s functions. He was definitely enjoying what Eddie was doing, even if he didn’t fully understand why. “I’m going to reach for one of the plugs now. Are your arms feeling okay?”

“My arms?” He sounded so confused. Poor thing.

“Yeah. Not tired are they?” Eddie asked as he pulled his fingers free and leaned back to reach for one of the toys off the dresser. That was the nice thing about this small apartment. You could reach pretty much anything in the room except the closet from the bed. He never had to get up to get toys or have them crowded beside them on the bed, rolling around and getting dirty. 

“No, Sir. Not tired...” He sounded tired, but he was using his manners without being prompted and that had Eddie beaming inside. Barry was such a natural. Eddie knew he had it in him.

“Good. Alright. Look at this one, okay? Not too big, right?” He was holding up one of the small plugs, honestly not any bigger (possibly just a bit smaller) than his three fingers. 

“Right,” Barry said, staring at the toy. 

“These ones aren’t very good at staying put, so you might have to use a little effort to hold it in, okay?” Eddie watched as Barry processed the words, eyes still wide. “Can you do that for me? Make sure it doesn’t fall out?”

“I think so… I can try… Sir.”

“Good. You can do it. I know you can. You’ve been doing so well...” 

“Okay...” 

“I’m not going to put too much lube on it because it’ll fall out. Alright? But it shouldn’t hurt. If it hurts, tell me. Okay?”

“Okay, Sir...” Said with a heavy sigh, like he was about to have a tooth pulled out.

It went without saying that Barry was surprised when the little plug was lodged inside of him and Eddie was pulling away—no pain, no agony, no torture. Just that little sensation of having something inside he could clench down on. 

“How’s that feel?”

“Uh… I don’t know. I don’t know. Weird?” Barry was searching the ceiling again, but his cock had twitched more to life—getting more worked up whenever he clenched around the small plug, giving him away. He liked it. 

“It’s the perfect length, too. Do you know why?” Eddie asked.

“Um… Not really.” Barry was looking at him, his eyes a little clouded like he was trying to slip off somewhere and couldn’t because Eddie kept commanding his attention. That suited him just fine.

“I’ll show you a trick.” Eddie reached down and nudged at the flared based of the plug, wiggling it a little until the tip of it struck its mark and grazed Barry’s prostate—something he’d intentionally avoided while fingering him open.

“Oh, God!” Barry jerked his arms on reflex, pulling both his wrists free of the scarves which he stared at, wide-eyed. “Oh… Oh, sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry, _Sir,”_ Eddie reminded him, stripping off his glove and setting it in the waste basket beside the bed before reaching for Barry’s wrists. He made sure to massage the skin and let Barry work his shoulders and arms out before placing them back up by the headboard and trying them again. “Should I show you what happens when we forget our manners now?” Eddie asked, allowing his disappointment to show—even if it was mostly for effect and not true disdain. Barry was behaving a lot better than Eddie had even expected, but that didn’t mean he could be let off the hook.

“I… Oh. Uh, s-sure. Okay. Sure. But… But—wait! Wait. You’re not going to, like—”

“I’m going to give you five with my hand. For a start… Just for now. To show you what you can expect when you forget your manners. Keep forgetting and we’ll work our way up from there. Do you understand?”

Barry stared at him, eyes big and wide. Then, after a moment, he nodded and took a sharp breath.

“Yes, Sir.” 

“Good. And to make sure you remember why you’re being punished, I want you to count and say ‘I’m sorry, Sir,’ after each one. Do you understand?”

His little look of disappointment was absolutely delicious. It was finally sinking in, just what position he’d placed himself in. “Yes, Sir.”

“Don’t let that plug fall out when I spank you or you get more. Understand?”

“Yes, Sir.” That sad, humiliated look was taking over more and more of his gaze, but his cock was still hard and swollen where it lay against his belly. 

“Alright. This is how it’s going to go. I want you to keep your knees up, but close your legs. Is it okay for me to move you how I want you from there?” Eddie asked.

Another defeated, “Yes, Sir.” 

“Good. Knees together. Don’t lose your plug.” 

Barry whined at having it mentioned, his chest flushing red again. Good. He should be embarrassed. The shame only grew worse from there when Barry realized how he was being positioned. The diaper position was always the most effective, especially when Eddie made sure to his submissive’s balls and cock were trapped between their thighs and on display—equally as vulnerable to being spanked if Eddie were to find it necessary. With Barry, they’d have to work up to that, though. For now, it was just an empty threat and another reminder that this was punishment. 

“You tell me when you’re ready.”

It was with a great, heaving sigh that Barry gave his consent—no coercion, no force—to be held in place and have his pale, soft ass punished for his mistake. Eddie could see it in his dark blue eyes that he knew he’d brought it on himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't be salty now! More will be coming very soon. No one actually likes a 10k word chapter let alone the nearly 18k I have written for this scene already. More very, very soon. I promise!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you it wouldn't be long before you got another update! Hopefully it's steamy enough for you.

Barry felt like he was being held under water—this crushing weight all around him that was preventing him from being able to breathe—except he could feel each and every shuddering breath that he took, even if the air wasn’t enough for his burning lungs. His knees were pushed back close to his head, there was some small toy trying to pop out of his ass despite his best efforts to keep clenched down on it, his balls were trapped between his legs, and he was terrified his dick was about to feel the full force of Dean’s palm colliding against it. Why was he here? Why was he doing this?

Why was his _dick so hard?_

More importantly, he knew going in that he was going to spanked tonight—one way or another—but since Dean was calling this one punishment, did that mean he’d lost his reward? The one Dean mentioned earlier? Barry didn’t know… And he was scared to ask. He was pretty sure that would be considered a ‘needy’ question. 

Barry just really hoped that after all this, he wouldn’t be left with blue balls again and another order not to touch himself. 

Barry let out a heavy, shaking sigh and squeezed his eyes shut, preparing to rip off the bandaid and just go for it. Jump right in with both feet and _drown._

“Okay, Sir. I’m ready...” 

The fucker waited until he quit tensing and opened his eyes before unleashing the first, stinging blow. Barry yelped from it, even though it didn’t hurt that bad at all, but very nearly pulled his hands free of the scarves again. After the blow, Dean’s palm stayed resting against the curve of his left cheek, stroking it as the burn burrowed deeper and deeper under his skin. The plug inside him came dangerously close to falling out once or twice as Barry’s body tried to acclimate to the unexpected strike. Suddenly, it was as if he finally realized what exactly he was doing here. He was learning to control his body against impulses he never even knew it had… 

“What are you supposed to say, Barry?” Dean asked, sighing in disappointment as Barry slogged through that deep, underwater feeling. 

“Shit. One. I’m sorry, Sir. Sorry I forgot for a second… Sir.” He wasn’t used to this. He didn’t know where to tack the name on, whether at the start or the end or in the middle. He didn’t _know._

“Good boy. You’re doing fine. I just wanted to remind you. Stay with me. Four more. Tell me when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready, Sir,” Barry answered, despairing all over again because Dean made him wait… He made him wait until he _wasn’t_ ready for the next blow, this one on the opposite cheek. “Two! I’m sorry, Sir.” Barry managed to keep his wrists in place, but if it weren’t for Dean’s quick reaction time, the plug would’ve fallen out onto the bed.

“What did I say about this toy, Barry?”

“I’m sorry, Sir. I tried. It’s too small.”

“It’s _not_ too small. You’re not concentrating on it. Do I need to give you a lesson later on how to concentrate down here? Hm?” When Dean met Barry’s eyes, they were pitch black again. It was a look that sent a shiver through Barry’s entire body and his cock, for whatever fucking reason, spurted out a tiny bit of precome that definitely did not go unnoticed. “Would you like me to teach you some lessons down here?”

Dean was toying with the base of the plug, twisting it and tugging it just enough to make Barry’s rim start to give, then letting go so his muscles would clench around it and pull it back. It was the single most weirdest feeling Barry had ever experienced, but he didn’t _not_ like it either.

“Wh-What would that...be exactly? Sir?” Barry asked, swallowing hard as a wicked grin split across Dean’s face. 

“A lot of positive,” he pushed on the base of the plug until the tip of it was nudging Barry’s prostate again, making the muscles in his stomach flutter unbearably, “and negative,” he jerked the plug all of the way out and then teased his rim with the tip of it, “reinforcement.” And the plug was being slid back home into Barry’s madly clenching hole. 

“I think I’m going to fucking come.”

“You’d better not.”

“Shit...” His wrists were free and he didn’t know when that happened, but Dean was tying them back up while Barry struggled to breathe. 

“That’s twice,” he said, and then without missing a beat added, “Would you like me to give you lessons down there after we try some more toys?”

“I… I don’t know, Sir,” Barry answered. He had more questions, but his brain was absolutely absent of words.

“Well, I’ll ask again later then. Are you ready for your last three?”

Barry whimpered out a sad, “Yes, Sir,” humiliated every time he offered himself up. Why was he doing this? Why did it feel good? 

“Don’t forget to count.”

“I won’t, Sir,” Barry said, wondering for a moment if Dean kept talking to him to make him say ‘sir’ more often. That was what the punishment was about, right? Not saying ‘sir’ properly?

The next spank landed directly between his cheeks, right against the plug—so hard and unexpected that Barry jerked his arms and pulled them free again. Goddamnit. Could he do _anything_ right? He was so fucking angry at himself and disappointed that he didn’t even realize he hadn’t counted or done whatever the fuck it was that Dean wanted from him because he was too busy seething at his freed hands.

“That’s already three times now, Barry, and we’re just getting started. I don’t think you’re going to get that reward if you keep it up.” His voice was so condescending and Barry, for a split second, imagined pulling out a gun and shooting him. And then, in an instant, was horrified that he’d thought such a thing and felt like crying. It wasn’t Dean’s fault that Barry was a fuck up. “Hey… Don’t look at me like that. Do I need to tie it a little tighter? That last one wasn’t very fair, huh? I won’t count that one, okay? Let me tie them a little better. God, you look so pretty when you’re disappointed.”

Disappointed? That wasn’t even the half of it. Barry was horrified at himself, but all Dean wanted to think about was how Barry hadn’t counted the spank.

“Do I already have to teach you about penalty swats?”

Would Barry look like a fucking idiot if he said he was already getting overwhelmed? He wasn’t even in pain, he was just... _angry._ He was so fucking bad at this… He was humiliated. 

“Barry, what’s the matter? That was my fault. I didn’t tie them enough. It’s okay. You’re doing wonderful. You’re being so good for me.”

“Whatever.” It was bratty and he knew it, but he couldn’t bite it back. He was angry, he wanted Dean to quit touching him. He wanted to go home… He wanted left alone. He wanted to pretend this never even fucking happened.

“Hey… Barry, Darling… Don’t get upset. It’s alright. Did you not like the way that last hit felt? If you didn’t like it, you can tell me. I won’t do that again if it made you uncomfortable.” His voice was sickeningly sweet and he was stroking Barry’s hair again. “You have to talk to me. I need to know what’s going on—”

“I’m not any good at this,” Barry said, looking off at the wall. 

“Well, I don’t think that’s true. You’re doing fine. I’m just playing with you, Darling. If something feels unfair, you just have to beg a little and I’ll reconsider. Sometimes I just like seeing that disappointment in your eyes. You look so helpless. Gets me worked up...”

He sounded sincere, but it hardly made Barry feel any better. Before long, Dean was untying him and making him drink some water which somehow did help, even if sitting up with that plug lodged in his ass made him squirm. It definitely had his attention. 

“How about we pause on this for now and I get another toy. Maybe this one is too small for you,” Dean said, smirking at him as Barry wiggled back into place on the bed.

“Does that mean you’re done spanking me?” Barry asked, realizing how absurd it sounded to his own ears and deciding then and there that he didn’t give a fuck anymore. This whole situation was absurd. 

“I could be… Would you like to finish?”

“Isn’t that the point? Finish what you started?”

“I think the point is making sure you’re comfortable. You still sound upset...” 

“I’m just...confused.”

“Well, it’s all just a game, Barry. There’s no real stakes. If you don’t like something, we just change the game until we find something you do. I don’t want your mood all ruined… I was so excited you came back to me.” He almost sounded like a jealous lover, and the look he had on his face while he stroked Barry’s hair again wasn’t helping.

Barry had this strange, sudden vision of himself doing the gesture back, stroking Dean’s hair, leaning up to kiss him… They’d make out a little and Barry could take charge and… 

“Barry?”

“I just...don’t like feeling like I’m ruining things.”

“Nothing’s ruined. I’ve told you that before. The scarves coming undone was my fault. You just flinched. Any person would their first time getting hit down there. Hm?” Calling attention to the plug, still nestled inside him, made his ass twitch—squeezing around it as if to check if it were still there. “How’s this sound? I’ll let you off the hook for not counting, and I won’t count the scarves coming untied against you. But you take the next two hits back to back, no worries about counting, and you just say ‘thank you, sir,’ after. How’s that?” 

“I thank you for hitting me?” Barry asked, his mind trying to keep up as his body kept clenching down on the toy, trying to expel it while he fought to keep it inside. He really hoped a bigger toy would help make it a little easier. 

What a weird thought to even have…

“You want me to spank you, don’t you?” Dean asked, still petting Barry’s hair.

“I...I guess.”

“You guess? So you don’t want me to?” 

He just liked making Barry feel embarrassed and it wasn’t fucking fair. It was exactly what Barry signed up for in agreeing to this, but it wasn’t fucking fair.

“Yes, Sir, I want you to,” Barry said, knowing he’d pressed the play button in doing so.

“Alright. Try to keep your hands still,” Dean said, making sure the scarves were tight enough this time before folding Barry’s limbs back where he wanted them, manipulating his mostly soft cock back into place between his thighs. Why did having them pinned there make his dick leap? Was it the touch? The pressure? The humiliation? God, there was too much happening right now. 

Barry let out a deep sigh and stared at his arms tied above his head. 

“Okay, Barry. When you’re ready. Two more.”

“I’m ready, Sir,” Barry said, closing his eyes and waiting. The strikes weren’t particularly hard and they didn’t come close to striking him over top the plug again, so it was easier to stay still until they were over. “Thank you, Sir.”

“There now. That’s my good boy. Now, hold still while I get your next toy, okay? It’s a little bigger, but it shouldn’t hurt...too much.”

“Too much?” Barry asked, eyes snapping open.

“Well, it’s bigger,” Dean said, meeting his gaze before turning away to grab one of the larger plugs off the dresser. “See? Bigger than three fingers, but not quite a fist.”

It was as long as Dean’s fingers, shaped almost like an arrow head but smooth, of course, and rounded. It was _significantly_ bigger than the one inside him now. 

“Is this the...the lesson?” Barry asked, staring at the toy as Dean dribbled lube over it and slicked it with his hand. 

“No. That’ll come a little later. This one’s a little longer, but I think you’ll like it. You’ll get way more stimulation that way.” He smirked as he said it and Barry’s mouth ran dry. Dean’s eyes were still locked on his own as he pulled the small plug free without warning, Barry’s hole clenching desperately around the emptiness once it was gone. Wouldn’t be empty for long… His heart was racing when the fat tip of the plug pressed against his rim right away. 

“Breathe out. It helps. Once I start pushing, I won’t stop until you tell me or it’s all the way in, alright?”

“Okay, Sir.” Oh, shit… 

“Okay. Breathe out. It’s alright.” 

It was a _lot_ bigger, and though Barry tried to cooperate, he could feel himself start tensing as it pressed steadily in further and further. The more he resisted, the more it burned and stung—the more he was whimpering and twisting his hips as he fought the sensations, desperate not to rip his hands free again. Dean was trying to coach him through it and Barry knew he wasn’t listening to him—and knew Dean was aware of it. That was why he’d warned him that he wasn’t going to stop. He just kept telling him to breathe and to relax. That was hard to do with… with… 

There was pre-come leaking down the side of dick and Barry whined as it chilled his skin. The toy felt like it was going on forever—hurting him more and more as it dug deeper inside, bumping and nudging his prostate now and then until Dean paused with it right at the widest part of its base. And wasn’t _that_ a strange fucking feeling.

“I’m going to let it go in now, and you’d better show me some manners or we start all over.”

“Manners?” Barry croaked, he was being stretched to the breaking point. What manners was he supposed to have? Was he supposed to say— “No! No, I’m sorry!” The plug was being pulled back out. All the way out. No, no, no! _Shit!_

“You’ll definitely be getting another lesson on manners here soon. Five with my hand wasn’t enough, was it?” 

“I’m sorry, Sir. I just forget...”

“You don’t _forget,_ you choose not to say it. Now, I don’t want our entire session to just end up being punishment here, but you’re not giving me much of a choice.” He was speaking so firmly, with so much disappointment. Why in the fucking world did that have his cock leaking another spurt of pre-come? Maybe it had to do with the way he was teasing the tip of the toy around Barry’s rim. “I’ll tell you what… I’ll let you choose since it’s your first time. Would you like me to pause and give you your punishments when you earn them, or do you want all of them together at the end?”

Why did he make Barry choose? He had no idea what was better—what made for a better flow of things. What if they got to the end and he was too tired? Or what if he chickened out? Or if he earned more than he could handle? Okay, that one was doubtful. If he could handle being shot and having to treat the injury himself to avoid questions at the hospital, he could handle being whipped or whatever else Dean had in mind.

“Okay, but I have a question,” Barry said, staring at the ceiling instead of Dean.

“What’s your question?” That toy was still probing at his rim and it was really fucking distracting.

“If… If we’re doing this and I choose at the end, does that mean any reward I would get, I don’t get anymore? If I earned one, I mean… Would I lose it?”

“Of course not. You still deserve your reward for being so good for me. You just need punished for being so bad, too. It’ll take more than absent mindedness to lose _all_ your rewards. You’ll take your punishment, and then you’ll get your reward after. Or, if you misbehave during your punishment, we can just take those rewards away. Make sense?”

“Well… What’s misbehaving?” Was that a dumb question? It felt like a dumb question. Was he just an idiot? He probably was.

“Not keeping position. Not counting. I can be lenient if you lose your place, but if you just won’t obey orders, then you don’t need rewarded. Right?”

“Okay…”

“I’ll let that one slide because I know you’re still thinking.”

Shit. He was _not_ good at this. How did he even survive bootcamp? Well, that was easy. He’d had a brain and was scared shitless back then.

“I just feel like you think I’m trying not listen when I’m actually just dumb.”

“Well, I know you’re dumb so…what else could it be? Besides Barry not wanting to let me be in charge? Hm?”

“I’m pretty sure I’m just dumb—hey!” The toy was being pushed inside him again without warning and Dean was smirking at him. 

“Oh. I’m sorry. Do you want me to stop?” 

“No, Sir,” Barry said, voice shaking as he bit back a groan from the feeling of being stretched open all over again. He was _not_ gonna fuck it up this time. He was _not_ going through this again. 

“Good boy. There you go… How does that feel, huh? You’re trying so hard to keep it out and I just won’t leave your poor ass alone, will I?”

Was that a real question? Barry had no clue. It wasn’t the slow and calculated method he’d used the first time. He was thrusting it in and out now, going deeper on every thrust. Barry lost count of how many times the flared base caught on his rim before it was pull back out all the way and pressed inside again. 

“Is—Sir? Is this p-punishment?” Barry asked, realizing he’d never answered that question. He’d gotten too caught up in asking his own.

“Why? Does it hurt?” He sounded so fucking casual, like he was trimming his nails or something and not torturing Barry’s asshole. _“Does it hurt?”_ He asked again, voice low and harsh as he pulled the toy all the way out and started over.

“I’m sorry, Sir. I’m sorry. Yes. It does.”

“Hm. That’s too bad. Do you need me to stop?” Still that same casual tone. Goddamn him.

“No, Sir,” Barry whined. His legs were even starting to shake. Why did it feel so fucking intense? Nothing was really even—okay, a lot was happening. A _lot_ was happening to his body right now and his poor rim was starting to feel raw from how many times it had had the flared base of the plug popped in and out. Now, Dean wasn’t taking it out all the way, just teasing his rim with the base—allowing him to close down around the plug just a little before pulling it back just enough to force him back open wide. “Please, Sir… Please. Please let it go. Please. I can’t...”

“Let it go? What, here?” He asked this, cruelly, while Barry’s rim was on the wrong side of the base—meaning it’d fall right the fuck out if he took his hand off of it, and he’d probably be punished for that, too. 

“Please, no, Sir.” He felt fucking pathetic, reduced to a pleading mess as the plug was pushed inside past his rim. 

“Here?”

“Yes, _please,_ Sir.” 

“Okay.” And with that he just let go. He just let it go and let Barry’s hole clamp shut around the tapered stem of the plug. That thing was _not_ coming out without some help. Oh, fuck. He could feel it in his goddamned _stomach._ “Your cock is _really_ hard right now. Did you like that punishment, Barry?”

“I don’t know, Sir,” Barry whined, making sure to ‘use his manners’ so something worse didn’t happen.

“It sure looks like you did. You might like the lesson you’ll be getting later. Do you remember what that lesson is for?” 

“To… To remember that...” No, that didn’t sound right. Fuck. It was like the toy in his ass was blocking off necessary parts of his brain, and now that Dean had mentioned his cock, it was all Barry wanted to think about it. It was so hard it hurt, the tip almost purple where it was covered in a sheen of wet pre-come. Barry couldn’t remember a time in his life that he’d been so hard and hadn’t been able to at least touch himself a little.

“Teaching you to concentrate on this right here,” Dean said, nudging the base of the plug. Barry jerked so hard from the unexpected touch that his head slammed against the wooden headboard enough to make his vision crack. “Are you okay? Barry?” And there was Dean’s hand, going right over to the sore part of his scalp, apparently not realizing that from where he was leaning over his body, Barry’s cock was pressed up against his firm stomach. 

“I’m… I’m okay. Are my hands still tied?” 

Dean chuckled at him and then leaned down even more—putting even more pressure and weight on Barry’s cock—to kiss him where he’d hit his head.

“Yes, they’re still tied. Good boy. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Take more than that to knock me out… Sir.”

Dean was still chuckling at him, seeming all too pleased, as he pulled back. “Good. I’m glad. Let’s get back to it, shall we?”

“Yes, Sir...” More torture. Sounds great…

“How would you feel if I applied some nipple clamps? The soft tip kind, not the alligator clips.”

Barry felt a mixture of thrill and dread pool in his stomach. It was about to be a very long, very cruel night.

( ) ( ) ( )

As it turned out, the nipple clamps did nothing for Barry. At all. Eddie had told him to wait, see if the sensation changed the longer he wore them, but it seemed his chest just wasn’t sensitive. He wore them while Eddie toyed with the plug inside of him, but then asked—using his manners like a good boy—if Eddie could take the clamps off because he “really wasn’t feeling it.”

“Is that how you tell me they’re making you uncomfortable?” Eddie asked, obeying his request as soon as it was spoken and taking them off. Barry didn’t even twitch. 

“Not uncomfortable, just… I don’t know. Honestly, you could’ve set a block of cheese on my chest and it would be about as exciting. I’d rather just… I don’t know. I’d rather just focus on the other stuff you’re doing.”

“Well, we’ll set these aside then and I’ll think of something else you might find more exciting for next time.” Eddie smirked down at him, reaching up to cup Barry’s cheek—making sure Barry met his gaze. Those blue eyes… He couldn’t get enough of them. “Shall we get back to it then? I think it’s time I gave you a little more attention here, hm?” He emphasized this by tugging playfully at the base of the plug still lodged deep in Barry’s ass. God, if he could swallow up the shuddering moan Barry let out at the contact, he would. 

“More attention?” 

Eddie let it slide that he didn’t tack on a Sir, simply because Barry sounded so alarmed at the thought. He needed so much more training, and Eddie couldn’t wait for the day he could really teach the other man a lesson. He wouldn’t forget to add Sir after that that. No, no, no. It’d be slipping out over dinner conversations, making him blush dark red in restaurants.

“Well, I still have to teach you some lessons, don’t I? Don’t worry. It won’t hurt.”

“Pain doesn’t bother me,” Barry said, letting out this heavy sigh like he’d been left waiting all day at the DMV. 

“We’ll see about that,” Eddie answered, reaching for a small string of anal beads. He’d been on the fence about using these so soon, but Barry really seemed to be enjoying the plugs. 

“You ever dug a bullet out of your own flesh?” Barry asked, shifting around on the mattress—swaying his knees back and forth, either out of restlessness or nerves. 

“I can’t say that I have. No.”

“Well, I have… And if you’ve gone through that, there’s not much that’s gonna bother you. Pain doesn’t bother me...” 

“Well, a perforated colon or anal fissure is a whole different kind of pain. And not really the kind you can do self-surgery on. That’s all I’m trying to tell you.”

“I don’t think you’re going to try to rupture my colon. You know what you’re doing better than I do… _I’d_ probably rupture my colon if I did this by myself—what are those?”

Eddie couldn’t help but to laugh. He seemed so shocked by the strand, but that was to be expected. The beads started small—small enough that Barry probably wouldn’t feel them at all now—but then got much, much larger. Larger than Eddie would be subjecting him to tonight. 

“Anal beads. Don’t worry—”

“They’re not gonna hurt? Do you see that? It’s the size of a fuckin’ tennis ball! People do that to themselves!?” 

“Time and lube, Barry. You can accomplish a lot with time and lube. Lots of lube. What I was going to say is that we won’t be getting that far tonight. Or ever, if you’re not comfortable with it. I was thinking maybe the first six or seven. Hm?” Eddie held up the string of beads and denoted the halfway mark. 

“Do… Do people fit the whole thing in there? It’s like...three feet long.” 

“It is _not_ three feet long. And yes. They do.”

“Your guys do?” He looked so horrified and his dick had started flagging. That was definitely not the effect Eddie wanted.

“Why do you insist on asking about them? Barry, I’m here for _you._ What they do or don’t do isn’t your problem. This isn’t some competition.”

“I just hate… Fuck it, never mind.” Barry’s head fell back against the pillows and he let out another sigh.

“Hate what? Barry… Hate what? I expect an answer. I’m still your Dom right now.” He emphasized this by tapping at the base of the plug, making Barry flinch. He was good, though, and didn’t tug at his restraints.

“I’m a forty-fucking-year-old man. I hate not knowing what I’m fucking doing. I hate that I have no idea what’s going on.”

“But you do know what’s going on… And I only recently started exploring this stuff, too. I’m over forty. What’s the matter with that? I’ve told you before, I got into this to help more men like me explore different sides of themselves. You’re doing very well. I don’t know why you keep being so hard on yourself. Maybe I’m just not telling you how good you’re doing, hm? Should I step up the praise a little? You definitely deserve it.” He made sure his voice was a purr, and that his hand came down to stroke Barry’s thigh and ghost over the long shaft of his swollen cock which immediately twitched with excitement. “You _are_ doing a very good job. And if you keep those wrists right there where you have them, I’ll give you your reward after this lesson. How’s that?”

“Okay, but… Can I just—Fuck it. I’m gonna say it, if you call me ‘good boy’ like I’m a dog one more fuckin’ time, I will knock myself out with this headboard.”

“Alright… Well, I wish you would have said that before we got to this point, but noted. I’ll come up with something else. Now, would you like to get started or do you need a water break?”

Barry looked at him a moment, almost mistrustful, then glanced away and said he’d like water. It was such a delight, watching him squirm and whimper as he sat up to drink his water with the plug still buried inside of him. His cock kept twitching between his legs, clearly liking the sensation despite how pained Barry sounded as he drank his water.

“Would you like to try a new position for this one? Hands and knees? I’ll have to tie your wrists a different way, but it’ll still be easy to pull them free if you have to.”

“Have to? More like _made_ to.”

“Remember, I told you before the knots are easy to untie to teach you _not_ to yank on my headboard.”

“Then what’s the point of being tied up?”

“To _feel_ helpless. We’ll get to the point where you’re not able to break free, but I don’t want you or _anyone_ thrashing around like they’re in a horror movie because they think it fits the bill. Shit’s annoying if we’re being honest.”

“Fair enough… Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine. Just… How do you want me to… Can this come out first? It’s so—”

“Absolutely not,” Eddie said, slapping his hand against the curve of Barry’s thigh as he moved to start rolling over. 

“Oh, God!”

“I thought pain didn’t bother you,” Eddie teased, helping to guide Barry with his hands—slapping his knees further apart and pressing on his back until he arched his spine toward the bed. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

“It’s not pain, it’s… I don’t know what it is.”

“If it doesn’t hurt, it must feel good then. Hm?” Eddie punctuated the question with another hard smack, this time centered right on the base of the plug between his spread cheeks.

“Shit! Shit, fuck… _Oh.”_ He groaned and buried his face in the pillow at the head of the bed, his arms stretched out in front of him—ready to be tied. Such a good boy.

“That’s it, Darling. Just like that. Stay still.” Eddie ran his hands over the globes of Barry’s ass a time or two, then grabbed the scarves and got Barry’s wrists tied as best he could. “Scoot your knees back a little more. I want your arms completely stretched out. Chest on the bed.”

Barry did as he was told, sighing the whole way as his body clenched around the plug with every motion. 

“Alright. I’m going to take out the plug, okay? I need you to behave and try to keep relaxed. Don’t fight it or it’ll hurt. Or do. Since you don’t mind the pain. Right?”

“Right, Sir,” Barry whispered, taking in a shuddering breath as Eddie toyed with the base of the plug, wiggling it and twisting it until a long string of pre-come began to connect Barry’s cock to the dark blue blanket beneath him. 

“You’re making such a mess…” He reached around with his left hand to firmly grip Barry’s cock, squeezing it at the same time that he started to withdraw the plug. He could feel it pulsing in his fist, more pre-come leaking out as Barry’s back arched up toward Eddie’s chest. “Relax. Relax, Barry, or it’s gonna hurt coming out.”

“I’m trying, Sir… I’m gonna fucking come if you don’t stop.”

“You’d better not...and I’m not going to stop. You should know this by now.” He gave another firm yank on the plug, feeling the resistance and letting go when Barry’s hole stayed defiantly clamped down. So fucking tight… What Eddie wouldn’t give to bury his cock in that tight heat, to feel Barry’s walls constricting around him—milking his cock for all it had. 

This wasn’t right. None of this was right. But Eddie couldn’t help him.

“Relax… That’s an _order.”_

“I’m trying,” Barry whimpered. “Sir, I’m sorry, Sir...” He was trying to thrust his hips downward, trying to fuck into Eddie’s hand as the plug was pulled on again. Eddie didn’t relent this time when Barry clamped down. He kept up the pressure until one last spasm from Barry’s clenching hole let the plug pop free. As soon as it was out, Eddie took his hands away—leaving Barry to thrust into nothing but air. 

He wished he had a camera. The image laid out in front of him was so obscene, so perfect. Barry’s cock was twitching helplessly, dark purple and aching between his legs, and his empty hole kept winking, spilling more little drops of lube down his taint like it was weeping from the loss of the toy that had kept it so stretched and full. 

Barry’s breaths were coming loud and heavy, his shoulders heaving as he tried to calm himself down. Every now and then he’d twitch his hips, trying in vain to get pressure and friction that he hadn’t earned. 

“If pain doesn’t bother you, I might have to get creative in some of my punishments, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know, Sir,” Barry wheezed. His hole gave a desperate clench as soon as Eddie said the word ‘punishment,’ and that spoke volumes about what Barry really thought about the subject. 

“I think you might find that pain applied in just the right places might get under your skin. For example...one of my boys has a pain tolerance quite like yours. He probably couldn’t carve a bullet out of skin, but the only way I’ve ever made him cry was to apply the riding crop...right _here.”_ Eddie delivered one sharp slap, right over Barry’s twitching hole, and the man let out a yelp—breaking position and grinding his hips down against the blanket, his legs pressed tightly together to protect himself from another blow. “Different, huh?”

_“Yes,”_ Barry whimpered, squirming and whining as Eddie grabbed him by his hips and pulled him back up into position.

“Yes?”

“Oh, shit...”

“Yes, _what?”_

“Yes, Sir,” Barry said, voice low as he realized what he’d done and that he was in trouble for it this time.

“Should I try that on you, Barry? Since you can’t remember your manners, maybe you need it. Three? With the crop? Right here?” He swiped his thumb over Barry’s hole once, then pressed down on his taint right below it—dirtying his finger with another trickle of lube. “Do you think you’ve earned that, Barry? Or can’t you handle it?”

“I-I don’t know, Sir.”

“You don’t know if you’ve earned it or you don’t know if you can handle it?” 

“I… I can handle it, Sir.”

“Good… Just three, I think. To teach you some manners. And remember, if you don’t like it, what do you say?” 

“I...” Barry’s chest was heaving, his voice spacey—even as Eddie stroked a hand up and down his back to help calm him and keep him grounded. “I just have to say I’m uncomfortable.”

“That’s right.” Eddie leaned back to reach for the dresser, opening one of the drawers to pull out the riding crop. He didn’t think he’d get to use it, but Barry was full of little surprises—and it would certainly help him with his lesson. One with the crop was enough to take all of one’s focus and attention. Three would make sure it stayed there. Eddie had been giving up to fifteen strikes in one round while in his training and that was where he’d tapped out. Barry could probably handle more, but for now...three was more than enough. “I’ll be nice this time and I won’t make you hold yourself open. You will count, though, and tell me you’re sorry. Okay?”

“Okay, Sir,” Barry wheezed. 

“Tell me when you’re ready,” Eddie said, tracing Barry’s hole with the tip of the crop. 

“I’m ready, Sir,” Barry answered, rubbing his face on the pillow. What Eddie wouldn’t give to see whatever look was in his eyes. 

“Alright. Let’s get started then.” Eddie swished the crop through the air once, just to make the swish and see Barry tense in anticipation. “Oh. I almost forgot. If you move out of position, that counts as a strike.”

“What’s… What’s the punishment for that? Sir?”

“I don’t know yet… I’m hoping it doesn’t happen. You aren’t planning to let me down are you?”

“No, Sir,” Barry answered, swallowing hard. “I’ll be good, Sir.”

“Good. Just three. Count them.”

The first strike had Barry’s entire body going tense. His hips dipped downward on reflex against the sting as he let out a low, long cry. Eddie leaned back and watched him suffer through it, watched him get his tight little ass right back in position like he was supposed to—then watched as a bright red stripe appeared between his cheeks. 

“One. I’m sorry, Sir,” Barry said, his voice rough. Yeah, it was definitely a different kind of pain. For now, though, Eddie wouldn’t rub it in.

“Good. Good job. Two more. Think you can take it?”

“Yes, Sir,” Barry moaned. He sounded so defeated, but his cock was still swollen and hard, dangling between his legs. 

The next strike landed more on his taint, and got an equally loud yelp only this time Barry arched his back upwards instead of down toward the bed. It took the smoothing of Eddie’s palm against his spine to get him to slump back down, but Eddie didn’t hold it against him. He wasn’t kicking or screaming or trying to wiggle away. 

“You’re doing so good, Darling. You’re so perfect,” Eddie said, rubbing his hand up and down Barry’s back as the man uttered out the count and his apology. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a pro at this.”

“A-A pro at getting… Oh, God.”

“One more. Do you think you can take it?” Eddie asked, making sure his tone was friendly enough that Barry could back out if he wanted to. He was pretty sure he didn’t want to, though. His cock was leaking pre-come again. It was a miracle he wasn’t weeping yet from how neglected it was. 

“Yes, Sir.”

“Alright. Do you think you can take it a little harder? Or were the last two enough?”

“I… I can take...harder, Sir,” Barry said, sounding a little like he’d surprised himself.

“Okay. Well, don’t break position. You asked for it harder, so you’ll take it. Alright?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Okay, Darling. Last one.” Eddie slid his left hand up and down on the globe of Barry’s ass before gently kneading it in order to pull it aside and open him up just a tiny bit more. It was cruel, sure, but Barry seemed to be liking it. For a first encounter, he was exploring so boldly—and staying present as he did, asking his questions and complaining here and there. 

When Eddie brought down the crop the final time, it was directly at the center of Barry’s spread-open hole. The howl he let out had Eddie’s cock pulsing, pumping out enough pre-come to form a wet patch all the way through his briefs.

“Damnit! Damnit! That hurt! Ow… Three. Ow… I’m sorry, Sir. Fuck, that one hurt.” Barry whimpered and twitched and tugged a little bit on the scarves, but he didn’t break his position and he didn’t break free of the scarves.

“Oh, God. You did so great. You did so good, Darling. That was perfect.”

“That _hurt.”_ Barry was squirming around, his thighs tensing out of instinct—trying to protect his hole from more abuse.

“I know… But you deserved it. Didn’t you?” Eddie smoothed his hands over Barry’s back and down his thighs.

“I guess so… Ow. I… I might need a break after that. That hurt.”

“Okay. Let me get your wrists—”

“I can get them—”

_“I_ will get them. Let’s get you some more water.” Eddie untied him, taking the time to massage and caress Barry’s wrists and hands before letting him sit up. He poured him a fresh glass of water and smiled at him as he gulped it down. His face was red, but not teary. That was good. He didn’t need to be crying his first session. Honestly, Eddie could feel horrible if he did.

“I might...need a break,” Barry said, breathing heavily after finishing off the glass. 

“A break or would you like to stop with the play for tonight?” Eddie asked, keeping his tone neutral as he refilled the glass.

“Uh...” Barry took another sip of water and then shrugged. “Do I sound shitty if I say I’m still hoping to...get that reward?”

He wanted to come. He hadn’t really earned it in the context of the scene, but it was his first time. He took that last whipping like a champ, too. His hole was probably still burning from it. That alone should be enough to make him worthy of a little release.

“I think we can come to a compromise on that,” Eddie said, watching Barry’s eyes go a little wide. “None of my submissives are just _given_ rewards. I’m not a hooker. You’re not guaranteed happy endings here. You know that.”

“I know that.” He looked ashamed of himself for asking, his shoulders hunching forward. There was suddenly a look of disgust in his eyes and he was grimacing before he took another drink. It wasn’t disgust toward Eddie, it was toward himself. He took this too seriously… 

That just wouldn’t do.

“We can save the beads for another time, and I can give you that reward,” Eddie said, a little relieved when Barry’s face softened—or at least lost that expression of self-repulsion. “But you should know...that reward involves something else going up your ass.” 

Barry winced at that, but he didn’t say no.

“Sore now, huh?”

“Yeah…”

“Is it worth it?” Eddie asked, his tone playful but still a bit stern. Barry had to decide if he wanted to tap out or keep moving forward.

“Well… Well, what are you putting up there?” Barry asked, eyes flicking nervously toward the dresser where all the toys were laid out. 

“How about...” Eddie turned away from him to set the string of beads he’d brought over to the bed before aside, then looked over the dongs and toys lined up. There was a very small, skinny one he’d planned to use, but he felt Barry could handle more than that—that he might like feeling more than that pushing past his rim. 

Medium was good for tonight. 

“How’s this sound, Barry? I’ll let you have an orgasm—your reward—if you can do it while I fuck you with this.” He showed him the toy and Barry got that wide-eyed, nervous look on his face again. It was a bashful look, not a fearful one, and it definitely wasn’t disgust. “Is this one too big?”

“Uh… I don’t think so. I mean, I think I can… Okay.”

“I need a yes or a no.”

“No, it’s not too big?” Barry offered, drinking more water and then setting the glass aside.

“Good. Now I’ll give you another choice: On your back or on your knees?” 

Barry gulped and looked away at the floor, his chest bright red. 

“I… I kind of liked the...the last pose.”

“On your knees?” Eddie asked. Damn. He really wanted to see the face he made when he came. He really, really regretted giving him that choice, but it was for Barry’s benefit—not his own. He had to remember that and not get carried away.

“Yes.” Barry scrubbed at his face with his hands, taking another moment or two to recover before he allowed Eddie to coax him back into place. Eddie bound his wrists, just as they’d been, and made sure he had his knees spread far enough apart that all of his sweet, private places were on display and easily accessible. 

“Alright, Darling. For this one, I’m going to use what’s called a lube shooter. Okay? Just to make sure you’ve got enough in there. No abrasions. Alright?”

“That sounds unpleasant.”

“You’ll hardly notice a thing,” Eddie said, smiling to himself as he reached for the nightstand where the bottle of lube was resting, then grabbed the syringe from on top of the dresser. He made sure the long, slender tube was slick after filling it up, then took his time stroking around the tightened up rim of Barry’s hole. Three quick slaps was all it took to get him tightened back up, like the plug had never even touched him. “I might have to finger you back open first. Guess you’ll have to be patient.”

Barry let out a soft sigh, but it didn’t seem to be one of disappointment. 

Eddie took his time with the prep, putting on a fresh glove, making sure the lube on his fingers was warm as he circled the rim and pressed in one finger at a time. He worked slowly, teasingly, watching Barry’s cock give helpless little twitches now and then as he was speared open. Once he’d accepted three fingers, Eddie pulled back and, without missing a beat, slid the long nozzle of the syringe into him—burying it deep. Barry shuddered as the cold lube squirted into his inner walls, his hips giving this sad little jolt that left his cock swaying helplessly back and forth between his legs. 

“I’m going to put the toy inside now, okay? We’ll go slow. Tell me if you need me to stop.”

“Okay, Sir,” Barry said, his legs starting to shake before the tip of the toy pressed against his hole. Eddie watched it tense up and waited until Barry relaxed before pressing the toy forward. His motions were slow, careful. He watched with his bottom lip between his teeth as the toy sank further and further inside—stretching Barry more and more. 

He wanted it to be his cock. He wanted to know what it felt like to have those walls squeeze around him the way they were doing to the toy. He was thicker than the dong… Barry would probably make even more noises for him. 

Right now, Barry was gasping and grunting as inch after inch was pressed inside until the toy was buried all the way inside, it’s testicle-shaped base pressed firmly to Barry’s taint for emphasis.

“How does that feel, huh? You did such a good job taking it. It must feel nice.”

“F-Feels… I don’t know. I feel it in my stomach.”

“That’s in your head,” Eddie said, slowly rocking the toy back and forth as Barry squirmed around. It had to be such a new sensation for him—a little different than the plug since his rim was still being stretched wide and not allowed to close around a narrow stem. “Do you trust me, Barry?”

“I fuckin’ hope so…” Barry answered, breathing heavily as Eddie began making shallow thrusts with the toy. 

“If you start to feel uncomfortable or you don’t like it, tell me. Okay? No hard feelings. No repercussions. Just say, ‘Dean, I’m uncomfortable,’ and we’ll stop. Alright?”

“Oh, shit… Shit. Yes. Okay. I’m… Yeah. I’m okay.” 

“Okay. This is your reward. So enjoy it. But try not to pull your wrists free. I don’t want to have to stop and spank you again.”

His hole clamped down tightly on the toy at the mention of being spanked, and Eddie couldn’t help the cruel smirk that crossed his face. What a perfect little masochist he’d found. Barry liked the idea of being spanked—maybe even more than he even realized.

Eddie began making deeper thrusts, pulling the toy back further and further each time, though he kept his pace slow as Barry adjusted to it. He managed to pull the dong back until the flared tip of the cock caught on Barry’s rim before pressing it slowly back in, and Barry let out the loudest of his moans yet. 

“Do you like that?”

“I…like that,” Barry admitted. Right now, Eddie wasn’t even going to bring up his ‘lack of manners.’ It was his first time. Eddie could be lenient. After all, the last thing he needed was to be put down or made to feel ashamed of himself the first time he had this sort of experience. No, he needed to feel taken care of and validated. He needed to feel like he was good at it.

“Good. Are you ready?”

“F-For what?”

“What do you think? Is this how you fuck? Because if it is, you’re not very good in bed...” Eddie said this as he kept the slow, painfully slow, in and out pace. 

“Oh, God...”

“Sinking in yet?” Eddie asked as he pressed the toy in to the base and wiggled it—just to make Barry feel how deep inside it was. 

“Yes, Sir...”

“Good. Are you ready?”

“Please?”

_“Please?”_

“Oh, God… Please, Sir. Please give it to me. _Fuck.”_

Eddie felt dizzy from how hard the words made him. He couldn’t resist the urge to reach down with his left hand and rub himself a couple of times through his briefs—just to relieve a bit of the pressure. 

“Alright. You’re doing so good. I don’t think this will take too long. Will it?” Eddie didn’t really expect an answer, and practically made giving one impossible. 

He worked up to a quick pace in only three or four thrusts of the toy, and Barry was gasping and moaning right off the bat. His hips twitched and squirmed, sometimes as if trying to escape the toy as it was rammed into him—sometimes as if chasing it. Eddie moved to pin Barry’s left knee between each of his own on the bed, his right hand controlling the toy while his left spread Barry’s cheeks further apart so he could feel the full extent of the toy at his rim. 

Lube was running down Barry’s spread thighs, dripping onto Eddie’s leg and down onto the blanket with each wet thrust of the toy. Eddie couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. He was getting drunk off of Barry’s deep moans, the way his hole looked as it gaped when he would pull the toy all the way out only to drive it back in. Barry kept uttering these quiet, choked little ‘oh, oh, oh!’ sounds as his wrists twisted around and around in the scarves—making them tighter without undoing the loose knots. 

More often than not, he was pushing his hips back to chase the toy—like he wanted it deeper, wanted it bigger. His body yearned for what he’d denied it for so long. Any time Eddie angled the toy to reach his prostate, Barry would yelp and arch his back toward the ceiling. His cock was starting to pulse, leaking so much pre-come it would be a miracle if he had anything left to release. 

He deserved that release. 

Eddie took his left hand away from Barry’s ass and slowly reached between his legs, closing his fingers around Barry’s cock—not jacking it, just squeezing. He held it firmly while fucking him with the toy, not slowing, and definitely not letting Barry squirm away from the sensations. His hips were twitching like mad, not sure if they wanted to press back on the toy to drive it deeper or attempt to fuck down into the hand squeezing his cock. He really couldn’t do either. He was helpless.

All Barry could do was whimper and squirm while the toy slammed into him from behind and Eddie pinned his cock. Every now and then he’d squeeze, making Barry cry out or curse.

“Does it feel good, Barry?” Eddie asked

“So fucking good,” Barry whimpered, voice shaking.

“Do you want to come?”

“Please! Please, Sir. Please let me come. I think I’m gonna fuckin’ pass out.”

“Well don’t do that,” Eddie teased, still working the toy in and out though he held it in place a little longer after it was all the way inside—pressing the curved plastic of the base into Barry’s taint so he could feel it before pulling back out to the ridge of the tip. Over and over again as he started to move his hand just the slightest bit up and down on Barry’s cock. 

In seconds, Barry was letting out this pained, loud cry and his hole had tightened so hard around the toy that Eddie feared it would hurt him if he pulled it back. He was coming onto his blanket, his chest heaving as he pumped out the ropes of come. 

It shouldn’t have surprised him so much, technically Barry had warned him just moments before, but when Barry’s entire body fell limp after that, Eddie had a moment where he’d feared the other man had suffered a heart attack. He’d gone completely still—just slumped over with the toy still inside him, still held in Eddie’s fist—then, after a tense moment, started taking these deep, labored breaths as he laid there in the wet spot on the blanket. Poor dear.

“Darling?” Eddie asked, slowly withdrawing the toy and setting it aside on the blanket. “Barry? Are you alright?” The other man’s wrists were free of the scarves, but the fabric was still twisted around his skin, just no longer attached to the headboard. His eyes were closed and his lips parted as he panted for air. “Darling, are you okay?” Eddie asked, moving to pet Barry’s hair. “Barry—”

“I’m...okay.”

“Okay. Let me get you cleaned up, okay? You just lay there and relax.” 

“Okay...” Barry didn’t open his eyes and he sounded so winded. He hardly even flinched when Eddie started cleaning him up with one of the baby wipes. He shuddered when his cock was touched, but that was about it. 

“You’re right in the wet spot, honey. Can you move over? Just an inch? Come on.” It took a lot of coaxing to get Barry to wiggle away from the center of the bed and roll onto his back so Eddie could finish cleaning him up. 

Now more than ever, it was so hard to resist the inappropriate urge to kiss him. God, why did he want so badly to kiss him? 

Eddie managed to get Barry to drink some more water for him, and a little after that the other man excused himself to use the bathroom. He took quite a bit of time in there, probably cleaning himself up more—hopefully not trying to work himself up again in hopes of a round two—so Eddie had a chance to gather up the used toys and place them in the little plastic bin he had under the bed for later cleaning. He folded up the blanket and set it in the special hamper next to his dresser, then put all of the clean toys away—out of sight. By the time Barry came back to the bedroom, Eddie had laid out his folded clothes on the dresser next to a pair of pajamas that Eddie really hoped would fit him and not be too loose. 

“What’s… What’s this?” Barry asked, blinking sleepily as he squinted at the two neatly folded sets of clothes.

“I have your clothes here,” Eddie said, tapping the dresser beside the little stack, “and some pajamas here for you, if you want.”

“Wait… To, like, sleep over?” Barry asked, so much confusion in his sleepy, blue eyes.

“Of course. Only if you want to.”

“On the couch?” Barry asked, blinking hard a couple times, like he was trying to wake up.

“Or in the bed… Only if you want to.”

“You want me to sleep…here? With you?” He sort of gestured to the bed like he didn’t understand—or as if he were afraid to assume that he was being invited to share a bed with Eddie after what they’d just done.

“I like to give that option. I think having someone to hold after an encounter can be...helpful. I worry if you just go home. But if that’s what you’d like, I won’t tie you down.” 

He was naked still, so it was easy to see how flustered he got from the statement by the way his chest bloomed red.

“I can stay?” Barry asked again, sounding almost shocked—overcome with disbelief. 

“Yes, Barry. I would _like_ you to stay. But you don’t have to. It’s just an option.” Eddie gave him one last smile, then started to fidget with the bed sheets, straightening them of all the wrinkles they had gotten—even with the blue blanket having been draped over them to keep them clean.

“I could do that,” Barry said. He moved slowly for the pajamas—blue flannel, to match his eyes—and began pulling them on. “You got these for me?”

“Yes, Barry. I don’t have communal pajamas,” Eddie answered, sighing. It was as if he were obsessed with bringing up the others, even indirectly. It made him seem possessive and Eddie knew from that inkling alone that it would be hard to keep Barry’s interest while also making sure he knew that he was just one of the submissives Eddie saw. He _wasn’t_ significant. It was _business._

“No, I just… It’s weird. I didn’t think I was on a sugar daddy app. It’s taking some getting used to.” His voice held no humor, but probably only because he sounded so tired. That orgasm had really taken it out of him. Poor thing.

“I spoil my boys. Now, come on. Into bed.” Eddie patted it, then moved over to fill a glass of water for himself and one for Barry. “I’m going to take a quick shower, then I’ll be back to join you. Okay?”

“Yeah. Yes, that’s fine. Should… Wait, do I need to shower?” He sniffed himself. Oh, the poor thing.

“No, Darling. You’re fine. Just lay down and rest. Drink some water while you’re at it.” Eddie smiled at him, hoping he’d come to conclusions on his own about why exactly Eddie wanted to shower besides the hygienic benefits. He must’ve, because his cheeks turned pink as he grabbed his water glass.

One day, Eddie would get him up to speed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh oh, looks like Barry is about to start having his future Flash Forwards where he starts daydreaming amazing, improbable things again. I also feel like Barry, in the series, 100% suffers from intrusive thoughts, thus why in this chapter he thinks about shooting Eddie even though it's the last thing in the world he wants to do. He really needs someone or something to keep his dark thoughts at bay. Luckily for him, Eddie isn't quite the _professional_ he thinks he is. I can't wait for him to realize what's going on. It'll be hilarious. Not so much for Barry, but for me. Sorry, Barry. And, yes, there's a reason Eddie can't stop saying Barry's name. And it'll be addressed. Don't worry, he annoys me, too. Just see it as the verbal version of doodling your crush's name in a notebook all day. More soon!


End file.
